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THE EDUCATION 
OF BEHAVIOUR 


A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY 


BY 


I. B. SAXBY, D.Sc. 


SENIOR ASSISTANT IN THE WOMEN’S EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CARDIFF 


G.P. Putnam's Sons 
New York €& London 
The Rnickerbocker Press 
1925 


Copyright, 1925 
by 
G. P. Putnam’s Sons 


Made in the United States of America 


f 
Fc 
ai 


PREFACE 


Tuis little book is an attempt to bring our present 
knowledge of psychology to bear on the problems of 
behaviour which have to be faced by those who are 
in charge of boys or girls during their adolescence. 
It is intended primarily for the student of education 
who wishes to teach young people between the ages of 
g and 17, but it is hoped that it will also appeal to 
parents as well as to foremen and social workers who 
are interested in the welfare of adolescents. 

It is always an open question how far a book of 
this nature should contain descriptions of educational 
experiments. These descriptions are undoubtedly use- 
ful as illustrations of the way in which psychological 
laws can be applied in practice. They would however 
have to be quoted at length, if they are to be of any 
real value to the reader and they are, moreover, given 
in books which are as a rule easily accessible to students 
of education. It has therefore seemed better to refer 
the student to these books and to leave him to draw 
his own conclusions from them. 

Perhaps the main purpose of the book is to make 
the educator realise that the behaviour of an individual 


ili 


iv Preface 


is governed by a highly complexed system of forces, 
and that these forces obey scientific laws which must 
be understood if the best results are to be obtained. 
In order to attain this I have emphasised the psycholog- 
ical side throughout. The reader who is acquainted 
with the literature of the subject will see how much 
my exposition owes to Professor McDougall’s Social 
Psychology, and to the standard books on analytical 
psychology. At the same time, I have not scrupled to 
give my own explanation of a psychological phenom- 
enon when [ could not find one which seemed to satisfy 
the conditions as I saw them. Since the book is in- 
tended for the beginner, I have, however, contented 
myself with stating where my view is not the one 
which is generally accepted, giving the reader at the 
same time such references as should enable him to 
make up his own mind on the subject. Lengthy dis- 
cussions of different points of view seem to me to 
be out of place in a book of this kind. 

In conclusion, J should like to thank Miss E. R. 
Murray for many helpful suggestions and to express 
my great obligation to Miss Alice Woods and to Dr. 
Stanley Watkins for reading the whole of the manu- 
script and for giving me much valuable criticism 
and advice. 


I. B. Saxsy. 
CARDIFF, WALES. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I.—INTRODUCTION . : . : i : 
II.—IMPULSES AND REFLEXES . ; ; } 
IIJ.—Some ImMporTANT IMPULSES : ; ; 
IV.—SENTIMENTS AND COMPLEXES . P : 


V.—NOTES ON THE FUNCTION OF THE NERVOUS 
SYSTEM . ‘ z : : A 


VI.—TuHE GrowTH AND CONTROL OF HABITS 
VII.—EmoTIoN AND SYMPATHY . ; : 
VIII—Tue PsycuoLtocy or CHARACTER a ‘ 


IX.—THE TRAINING OF CHARACTER . ; : 


X.—WorK AND PLAY ; ; ‘ - j 
XI.—CoNCLUSION : : : ; ; ; 
BIBLIOGRAPHY . p ; ‘ : ; 
INDEX . : P ‘ ; : “ : 


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The Education of Behaviour 


CHAPTER I 


INTRODUCTION 


Education as preparation for efficient citizenship. 
Citizenship as the joint product of natural power and 
environment. é 

STATED in its most general terms, education may be 
said to be preparation for adult life, and this in turn 
may be described as preparation for efficient citizen- 
ship. If we are now asked what exactly is involved in 
this, we cannot do better than turn to Herbert Spencer 
for an answer. In his book entitled Education: Intel- 
lectual, Moral and Physical, he points out that the 
ideal education of a citizen should include: (1) that 
which prepares for direct self-preservation; (2) that 
which prepares for indirect self-preservation; (3) 
that which prepares for parenthood; (4) that which 
prepares for citizenship in the narrower sense of the 
word; and (5) that which prepares for the miscel- 
laneous refinements of life. 

3 


4 The Education of Behaviour 


To put the same thing in different words, an effi- 
cient citizen should be able and willing: (1) to keep 
himself fit and in good condition; (2) to do his share 
of the world’s work; (3) to give his children the neces- 
sary care and training; (4) to do his duty by his 
neighbours; and (5) to occupy his leisure in such a 
way as to provide a desirable outlet for those of his 
longings which would otherwise remain unsatisfied. 

It is the object of this book to give the student some 
insight into the conditions under which he is likely to 
succeed in turning his pupils into efficient citizens in 
the sense just defined. 

At the outset it is important to determine how much 
responsibility rests on the child and how much on the 
educator, for our whole attitude towards the problem 
necessarily depends on our answer to this question. If 
the child’s mind is of the nature of a waxen tablet on 
which we can write what we like, then the environment 
must be entirely responsible for the result; if heredity 
practically settles the child’s future at the outset, then 
it is useless to attempt any sort of interference. As 
usual, the truth appears to lie somewhere between these 
two extremes. The natural endowments of the child 
present as it were the sum total of his possibilities, but 
it depends on the environment how they develop, and 
far more persons fail through lack of right environ- 
ment in youth than through lack of inborn ability. 


Introduction 5 


In order to see how heredity and environment act 
and react on each other, we shall begin with a brief 
investigation into the origin of standards of conduct 
and attainments. Superficial observation may suggest 
that these two important “springs of action” have come 
into existence in absolutely different ways, for we can 
remember acquiring most of our attainments by con- 
scious efforts of our own, whereas many of our stand- 
ards of conduct seem so much part and parcel of 
ourselves that we are sometimes tempted to think we 
must have been born with them. However, further 
reflection soon shows that both are really the joint 
products of natural power and environment. 

I will consider attainments first. The knowledge 
which a child acquires at school depends partly on him- 
self, but much more on the school. He may, for in- 
stance, have only slight ability for mathematics, and 
yet learn more than another with greater natural talent, 
merely because he happens to have a better teacher. 
Even exceptional ability may never develop in an un- 
favourable environment, for we need opportunity to 
discover what we can do, and we may exhaust our- 
selves in overcoming real or imaginary obstacles when 
we have discovered it. 

In the sphere of conduct the conditions under which 
a child grows up are even more important, for the 
young child has no inborn ideas of right or wrong, 


6 The Education of Behaviour 


and has therefore to acquire them through personal 
experience. It should be noted, too, that this “personal 
experience” is only his own in a very limited sense. 
He can be allowed to find out for himself that fire 
burns, but not that certain berries are poisonous. In 
this and many other cases his discovery is limited to 
the fact that we approve or disapprove of certain acts, 
and he has to take on trust that we know better 
than he, or that the reasons which we choose to give 
him are really correct. This is particularly the case 
with conventions. Why, for instance, should you say 
“Please” and “Thank you” at every turn? It would 
puzzle the average adult to give the child of three to 
five an answer that would really convince him; yet 
the child often shows by the tone of his voice that he 
is anything but satisfied. None the less, he usually 
acquiesces in the end, partly no doubt because he is so 
dependent on us, but perhaps mainly because he is 
continually being made conscious of the superior know- 
ledge and power of his elders, and is therefore inclined 
to assume that they probably know best in every case, 
however incomprehensible their demands seem to be. 
Thus he gradually adopts the standards of conduct 
which are accepted in his environment. } 

For most persons there comes, however, a time— 
usually during adolescence—when they begin to mix 
with others whose standards of conduct differ more or 


Introduction 7 


less from their own, and whom they have yet every 
reason to respect. Then one of two things may hap- 
pen: they may learn to close their eyes to everything 
that threatens their peace of mind; but, failing that, 
they must modify their views sufficiently to enable them 
to fit into the old what they feel to be true in the new. 
Whichever path the adolescent chooses, he is now for 
the first time actively affecting his standards of conduct 
and his beliefs. It is, however, well to bear in mind 
that most of us would grow up without ever question- 
ing the absolute finality of what we were taught as 
children, if we did not come across others who have 
been taught to think differently, and are therefore not 
prepared to accept our point of view. Thus our stand- 
ards of conduct seem to be derived almost entirely from 
our environment. They are, however, not sufficient 
to decide behaviour alone, for right action involves a 
knowledge of what is right coupled with the desire to 
act in accordance with that knowledge, and it is pos- 
sible to approve of a certain course of action without 
experiencing the least desire to adopt it. We have there- 
fore still to consider how far this desire is dependent 
on the environment. 

This problem will be considered in detail at a later 
stage. Here it is sufficient to note that our desire to 
control anti-social wishes springs in the main from our 
desire to win the approval, or at least te avoid the 


8 The Education of Behaviour 


disapproval, of those whose opinion we value for any 
reason. In adult life, we may ignore the wishes of 
such persons on occasion because we think that we 
know the facts of the case better than they do, because 
we imagine that we are sure not to be found out, or 
because our desire is so great that we cannot withstand 
it. During the early years of life the first of these is 
rarely a cause of disobedience, for a child is continually 
being made aware of his own weakness and ignorance, 
and is therefore not likely to question the opinion of 
his elders. It should therefore be a comparatively 
easy matter to teach children what is right and what 
is wrong and to make them want to do right. All that 
is needed is to win their love and respect, then the rest 
should follow almost automatically. Yet we fail again 
and again. What is the cause? ‘There is certainly no 
lack of goodwill on the part of the child, at any rate 
initially. Those of us who know children intimately 
know that they will try to do the most unreasonable 
things in order to please those they love. Here is a 
case in point. A little girl of five or six was travelling 
with her grandmother from Cardiff to London. The 
grandmother told the child to “‘sit nice and still,” and 
then got out a paper and began to read it. The little 
girl evidently tried to obey, but she had been provided 
with neither picture-book nor toy. Needless to say she 
began to fidget before long. The grandmother asked 


Introduction 9 


her once more to keep quiet; then turned to her neigh- 
bour and said: “I am always telling her to sit still and 
she does try, but she finds it very hard to remember.” 
It was evident from the attitude of the child that it 
had never struck her to question the wisdom of her 
grandmother’s demands. She was merely trying to 
“remember,” and possibly rather vexed with herself 
for forgetting. It must be said for the grandmother 
that she was wiser than her words; for when the young 
fidget began again a few minutes later, she simply cast 
her neighbour a glance which said: ‘You see, she has 
forgotten again,’ and left the child to amuse herself 
in her own way until she went to sleep through sheer 
boredom. 

Here there was failure on the part of the child, but 
not rebellion. The grandmother had succeeded in 
inculcating the desire to sit still, the little girl was 
merely finding it difficult to obey. She was not defying 
her grandmother in any sense of the word. 

At other times we have to deal with true rebellion. 
The child disobeys us deliberately when he cannot pos- 
sibly have forgotten what we told him to do. We tell 
him to weed the garden, and he goes off to play with 
his companions; we tell him not to climb a certain tree 
and presently find him ensconced on its topmost branch. 

We may take it for granted that the young child 
who disobeys us in this fashion does not do so because 


10 The Education of Behaviour 


he thinks that he is in the right and that we are in the 
wrong. He does not as yet question our right to 
lay down the law. His choice lies between obedience 
with a good conscience and disobedience with a bad 
conscience. Yet he may disobey us all the same, and 
that because the desire for approval is by no means the 
only desire with which he is equipped. Nature has pro- 
vided the child with a large number of impulses, or de- 
sires to act. There is the impulse to find out about 
something new, the impulse to try one’s powers, and 
so forth. All these impulses vary in strength, not only 
in different children, but in the same child at different 
times, and some chance occurrence may render any one 
of them so strong that the child is unable to resist it 
for the time being. The result is disobedience. Under 
wise guidance such disobedience will, however, only 
lead to a firm determination not to fail again. It is 
only when the adult demands too much, when failure 
succeeds failure, that the child presently decides that 
it is no good trying to be good, and that it is less 
trouble to be naughty and take the consequences. But 
even in such a case the young child does not, as a rule, 
reject the standards of his environment, for he is still 
convinced that he is in the wrong. He merely decides 
that these things are not for him, and thus loses all 
desire to try to be “good.” 

The same applies, of course, to the acquisition of 


Introduction II 


knowledge. The child who finds the work consist- 
ently too difficult, sooner or later gives up attempting 
to attend in class, with the result that he does not even 
learn the little that is within the range of his ability. 
Under suitable tuition such a child will often discover, 
to his own surprise and delight, that there are things 
which interest him and which he can do as well as 
another. Then lessons become worth while, inattention 
disappears, and he begins to work at least as hard as 
his more gifted fellows.? 

It follows from all this that the environment (in- 
cluding therein both the persons and the things with 
which the child comes into contact) is to a large extent 
responsible for the ideals and attainments of the child, 
but that it is not all-powerful. You can take the horse 
to water, but you cannot make it drink. So, too, you 
can give the child the opportunity to develop right 
ideals or to acquire necessary knowledge and skill, but 
you cannot force him to make the effort against his 
will, nor to learn more than his natural ability will 
allow him to learn. The environment of any child 
represents as it were the sum total of the possibilities 
that fate has provided for him. If it includes a wise 
educator, one who knows how to stimulate right desires 
in the child and to make him want to control undesira- 


*I have been definitely told by such a child: “I was always 
supposed to be hopelessly stupid.” 


12 The Education of Behaviour 


ble impulses, his chances of success will be by so much 
the greater. But in the end it is the child himself who 
must acquire the knowledge and the ideals which he 
will need if he is to become an efficient citizen. He 
must be active, not passive; an individual who uses his 
environment to develop his powers and organise the 
impulses with which he is born, not a mere phonograph 
that will reproduce faithfully whatever is said into it. 


PeHARTE RIL 


IMPULSES AND REFLEXES 
A. Definition of Impulse as an Inborn Tendency to Seek a 
Certain End in Certain Situations. 
B. The Effect of Blocking the Usual Outlets of an Impulse. 
C. The Relation of Emotion to Impulse. 


D. Definition of Reflex as an Inborn Tendency to React in 
one Specific Way to one Specific Stimulus. 


E. The Relative Survival Value of Reflex and Impulse :— 
(1) In a fixed environment, and (2) in a variable 
environment. 


WE saw in the last chapter that the student of 
human behaviour is primarily concerned with the 
origin and growth of desires. It will, however, be 
necessary to do some preliminary work before we can 
understand the problems connected with this subject. 
We shall, therefore, study impulses and reflexes in 
this chapter, and return to the psychology of desire at 
a later stage. 


A. The Definition of Impulse 


Impulses are many and varied in character. If 
we think we are in danger, we want to run away; 
13 


14 The Education of Behaviour 


if we see something strange, but not too strange, 
we like to examine it; if we are faced with an obsta- 
cle, we want to surmount it. All these desires are due 
to impulses, that is to say, to inborn tendencies to act 
in a certain way under certain conditions. It is 
characteristic of an impulse that it urges us to some 
mode of action which seems for the time being abso- 
lutely obvious, though we could often give no satis- 
factory reason for our behaviour. Further, the true 
impulsive act is always conscious. I may blink and 
breathe without knowing it, but I do not run away 
unless I am conscious of danger. It is convenient to 
use the word perceived for being aware of an object, 
no matter whether we hear it or see it, touch it or 
smell it, etc., and to call the thing that has been per- 
cewed in this way a percept. An impulse is, therefore, 
an inborn desire to attain a certain end in the presence 
of certain kinds of percepts. It should, moreover, be 
observed that the actual percept is not always neces- 
sary, at any rate in the case of human beings. Thus 
the candidate for an examination may be so afraid of 
failure that he decides not to sit for it: here it is not 
an accomplished fact, but the mere thought, “TI shall not 
pass,” which is responsible for his action. The actual 
percepts or ideas that are able to arouse a particular 
impulse vary greatly from person to person and from 
day to day, but it is none the less possible to classify 


Impulses and Reflexes 15 


them. Thus the impulse to avoid danger is roused by 
every percept which suggests danger, but it depends 
on the previous experience and knowledge of the indi- 
vidual whether a particular percept does or does not 
have that effect on a particular occasion. For instance, 
the sound of an aeroplane normaliy causes no more 
alarm than that of a passing motor; during the air 
raids it was, however, impossible to hear it without 
experiencing at least a momentary pang of fear. 

Moreover, the means which are chosen to attain the 
end of the impulse are also liable to variation. It may 
be well to run away literally if we wish to escape from 
danger, but it may be safer to hide, or to tell a lie, or 
to ask for mercy. So, too, we may examine a strange 
object ourselves, or we may consult either a book or 
another individual about it: whichever course we adopt 
we are Satisfying our impulse to investigate. 

In general there are a large number of percepts 
that may arouse a given impulse and a large number 
of acts through which any one impulse may seek to 
attain its end. It will, however, always be found, both 
in regard to the different percepts and ideas and in re- 
gard to the resulting acts, that they belong to definite 
classes (e.g. things that are dangerous or methods of 
escape), and that they owe their connection with the 
impulse to the fact that they are, for the time being, 
members of the corresponding class. 


1 The Education of Behaviour 


We may, therefore, define an impulse as follows: 
An impulse is an inborn tendency to seek a certain end 
in certain situations. (It makes us want to avoid dan- 
ger, to remove obstacles from our path, etc.) Jt is 
roused by all percepts and ideas which seem to the 
individual to suggest one of these situations, and tt 
may seek to attain its end by any of the means which 
he has learnt to use for that purpose. 


B. The Effect of Blocking the Usual Outlets of an 
Impulse 


When the usual outlets of an impulse are blocked, 
one of two things may happen: the individual in ques- 
tion may feel that it is hopeless for him to try to 
get what he wants, or he may think he can 
overcome the obstacle. In the first case the nervous 
energy that has been set free by the percept tends to 
be driven into some unhealthy channel, such as worry- 
ing, fussing or self-pity, all of which use up energy 
without producing results of any value. In the second 
case it is expended in attempts to attain the end of 
the impulse by removing the obstacle. It must not, of 
course, be imagined that the choice of one or other 
of these alternatives necessarily involves deliberation. 
Often circumstances make it obvious whether it is 
or is not worth while to assert oneself: a child of four 
will fight another child of his own age who tries to 


Impulses and Reflexes 17 


spoil his game, but he will merely cry helplessly if a boy 
of twelve chooses to bully him. If there is actual 
danger to life and little chance of escape the individual 
will, however, often fight, even though he knows that 
his case is desperate. Thus the criminal who is caught 
red-handed will at times aggravate his offence by trying 
to kill his captors. 

The weapons we use in the fight necessarily depend 
on the obstacle we have to overcome. Sometimes mere 
physical strength is all that is required: we fight with 
the fist, the spear, or some more modern weapon. But 
these are often insufficient by themselves; they may even 
be useless. Suppose, for instance, that I want to solve 
some mystery and find I cannot do it. My curiosity 
may be too strong to leave me in peace, my pride 
may be involved as well, so that I am determined 
not to be beaten. In such a case I begin to cudgel my 
brains. I bring all my knowledge and all my power of 
synthesis and analysis to bear upon my problem. I 
work at it until I either solve the mystery or am forced 
to give it up as a task beyond my powers. It is worth 
while to notice the metaphors we use in this connection. 
“To be beaten,” and “to cudgel,” and to be “‘forced’’ to 
do a thing are evidently all taken from the act of fight- 
ing. <And this is true to life; the process does feel like 
a fight whenever we are finding it difficult to solve a 
problem, and most of us have reason to know that de- 


18 The Education of Behaviour 


feat in such a case may mean a loss of self-respect which 
is quite out of proportion to the importance of the task 
in which we have failed. 

We may, then, state generally that an obstacle to the 
free functioning of any impulse normally produces an 
impulse to overcome that obstacle. It is only when suc- 
cess appears to be out of the question that the individual 
tends to give way without a struggle. As for the 
weapons we use, they naturally vary with the needs of 
the case and with the means at our disposal. At differ- 
ent times we may have recourse to our fists, or to our 
powers of verbal expression, to an elaborate engine of 
war, or to a fine scientific instrument, and our use of any 
of these may be guided by a highly trained or by an 
absolutely untrained mind. 


C. The Relation of Emotion to Impulse 


So far we have discussed impulse as though it only 
involved the percept that sets it in motion and the act 
by which it seeks to attain its end. A moment’s con- 
sideration will show that this is not true to life. Take 
the case of a person who is running away from a mad 
bull. He is obviously actuated by the desire to avoid 
danger, and at first, while he is running at the top of his 
speed, he is probably aware of little but the bull behind 
him and the gate at the end of the field. But suppose 
that the gate proves insurmountable, or that his strength 


Impulses and Reflexes 19 


fails him before he is able to reach it. Then his original 
form of reaction, that of running away, is checked, and 
he is likely to experience an acute attack of fear, unless 
an alternate form of activity happens to present itself 
almost immediately. Similarly, the person who 1s over- 
coming his opponent in a fight is not likely to experience 
much anger, whereas the one who is being worsted in 
the conflict, and who is therefore not able to satisfy his 
impulse to assert himself, will probably feel angry both 
during and after the event. The reader will easily 
collect other examples to the same effect. We are thus 
led to conclude that an emotion tends to be produced 
when more energy ts set free by the percept than is 
used up in action. 

It is a matter of common knowledge that each of 
the well-known emotions is a characteristic phenome- 
non which only occurs in connection with one par- 
ticular impulse. The question thus arises whether all 
impulses are liable to be accompanied by specific feeling 
tones. The first thing to observe in this connection is 
that popular usage has at any rate not provided them 
all with names for their feeling tones. We are, for 
instance, endowed with an impulse to construct. It 
appears very early, in the young child’s love of making 
and building things, and seems to persist through life 
if too much energy is not absorbed in the mere strug- 
gle for existence. We see signs of it in every well- 


20 The Education of Behaviour 


kept suburb garden, in the make-shifts that some of 
us like to invent for our own use, and in the pleasure 
that others take in designing or making their own 
clothes. The impulse to construct is therefore a fairly 
strong and a well-established impulse; yet popular 
usage provides no special name for any feeling tone 
connected with it. We just say that we enjoy making 
things, and do not differentiate the special form of en- 
joyment any further. 

If there is, none the less, a special feeling tone, we 
should become aware of it when we try to recall our 
state of mind during the process of constructing im- 
mediately after the impulsive activity has come to an 
end. If we do this, we shall, I think, find that the 
pleasure we take in ‘‘making for the sake of making” 
has a special flavour about it which differentiates it 
from all other pleasures. Often, no doubt, the actual 
pleasure we experience is mixed with others, such as 
that derived from admiration, but at times (e.g. when 
engaged in certain hobbies) it is difficult to account 
for our occupation in terms of any impulse other than 
the impulse to construct. Any one who has worked 
under such conditions knows that the pleasure we ex- 
perience on these occasions is, if anything, increased 
by the absence of ulterior motives. It is a character- 
istic experience, which belongs to the same genus as 
the emotions, and it has only not been differentiated 


Impulses and Reflexes 21 


from other forms of enjoyment because it is so much 
less intense than anger or fear. It seems probable that 
other impulses, such as the impulse to collect, are also 
accompanied by characteristic feeling tones when more - 
energy is being set free than can be used in action, and 
that these, too, have not risen to the dignity of a special 
name because they are experienced in so slight a degree 
that they do not attract the attention of the man in the 
street. 


D. Defimtion of Reflex 


We saw above that neither the percepts which rouse 
an impulse nor the acts by which it seeks to attain 
its end are fixed at birth. If we find that a certain 
percept is not followed by pain, we no longer seek to 
avoid it; if we fail to attain the end of an impulse by 
one form of activity, we are able to try another on the 
next occasion. 

We have now to turn our attention to a form of 
activity which is also inborn, but which differs from 
the impulse in that it is fixed in every detail at birth, 
and is therefore either not at all or only indirectly 
under our control. We can make the heart beat more 
quickly by running, but we cannot change its rate by 
an act of will, We can hold our breath for a while, 
but the strain soon becomes too great for us. No 
amount of practice will prevent our starting at an un- 


22 The Education of Behaviour 


expected noise or blinking when the wind blows dust 
into our eyes. And there are countless movements 
going on within us of which we do not even become 
aware unless we happen to take up the study of 
physiology. 

All these forms of reaction may be classed together 
for our purpose, Different as they are in some respects, 
they all have the one point in common, that they are 
fixed more or less completely at birth, and conse- 
quently either predetermined in every respect or only 
educable within comparatively narrow limits. When a 
form of behaviour is fixed in every respect it is usually 
called a “reflex.” <A reflex may therefore be defined 
as an inborn tendency to react in one specific way to 
one specific stimulus or set of stimuli. 


E. The Relative Survival Value of Reflex and 
Impulsive Activity 


Of the two forms of activity, the reflex and the 
impulsive, the reflex is undoubtedly the more primitive, 
for it achieves its end without even needing awareness 
on the part of the individual, whereas the value of 
impulsive activity depends on the power to learn from 
experience. The very fact that it is fixed in every 
detail means that a reflex ensures the well-being of the 
animal in the environment in which it originated; but 
it does this at a great cost, for the very fact that all 


Impulses and Reflexes 23 


its reactions are fixed at birth makes it impossible for 
the reflex animal to adapt itself to a change in its 
environment. Thus even a slight development in 
power to learn from experience gives an animal a 
tremendous advantage in the struggle for existence. 
Such a development is, however, only useful in the 
case of a particular reaction, if that reaction is of 
such a nature that its survival value is likely to vary 
with changes in the environment; otherwise the reflex 
is really more serviceable just because it does not 
depend on the whim of the individual. Accordingly 
the extent to which a creature is left to learn from 
experience increases greatly in the higher forms of 
life, but at the same time adaptability is only developed 
in any particular case in so far as the animal is 
likely to be able to make use of it. The chicken’s 
breathing is reflex, and therefore uneducable. His 
tendency to pick up caterpillars and worms is also 
inborn, for he does it successfully at the first attempt 
and feels impelled to do it when he has had no oppor- 
tunity of learning it from another chicken. Yet this 
act is partially educable, for the chicken can learn 
through experience that certain yellow and black 
caterpillars are unpalatable, and therefore best left 
alone (Lloyd Morgan, Comparative Psychology, p. 
2A), 

In the human being all stages of development can 


24 The Education of Behaviour 


be observed. Blinking is an instance of pure reflex 
activity, for it is quite uneducable. In coughing there 
is a little control: if the stimulus is not too strong, the 
individual can restrain his tendency to cough until the 
irritation has passed away. In talking we see a further 
development of the power to adapt behaviour to the 
needs of the environment, for there is only an inborn 
tendency to produce sounds of some kind with the 
vocal cords: the child who is born deaf does not 
learn to speak because he does not hear others 
speak, though he will, unknown to himself, produce 
sounds under the influence of emotion. Finally, true 
impulsive acts like fighting depend entirely on the 
environment for the form they take; in these 
the individual is merely endowed with the desire to 
attain certain ends in regard to certain situations, 
and is left to learn all else from experience 
(cf. below). For our purpose there will be no need 
to consider reactions which are intermediate between 
the pure reflex and the true impulsive act, for they 
affect our behaviour like impulses in so far as they are 
educable, like reflexes in so far as they are not educable. 
At times the same end is attained by impulsive or by 
reflex activity according to the circumstances of the 
case. Thus our personal safety is secured not only by 
the impulse to avoid danger, but also by the reflexes 
which make us start at a sudden noise and look round 


Impulses and Reflexes 25 


ata moving object. It is interesting to note that only 
reactions which are always useful are reflex in such 
a case. 

The reader may think that there are certain specific 
reactions connected with every impulse: the tendency 
to use one’s limbs with the impulse to fight, the 
tendency to run away with the impulse to avoid danger. 
It can, however, be shown that this assertion is at 
least open to doubt. During the first months of his 
life the baby necessarily learns that some things move 
if he presses against them, with the result that he 
presently tries to push away the people and the things 
which he does not want. As he grows older the push 
increases in force. Sooner or later it is directed against 
his equals, and thus produces a counter-push. Then 
the result is a fight. The tendency to run away from 
danger is probably also based on early experience. 
As soon as the baby becomes aware of his mother, he 
must realise her as the person who removes pain and 
discomfort. At first he can only cry when he wants 
her and must wait until she chooses to attend to him, 
but as soon as he has learnt to run he can go to her, 
if she does not come at his call. Then for some time 
he runs to her whenever he is frightened. -However, 
there comes a day when he feels in need of protection 
and fails to find either his mother or a substitute for 
her. On such an occasion he is likely to discover that 


‘ 


26 The Education of Behaviour 


the running away was useful in itself, and from that it 
is only a small step to adopt running away as a mode of 
avoiding danger. Other cases could be worked out on 
similar lines. Thus there seems to be no need to 
assume that any of the specific means of attaining the 
end are innate in the case of an impulse. In other 
words, an impulse seems to be designed to secure the 
maximum of adaptability by leaving it to experience 
to teach the form of reaction that is most suited to 
different situations. We shall see later that at any rate 
two of the impulses are provided with reflexes which 
prepare the body for the extra strain which is likely 
to be thrown upon it when the safety of the individual 
is endangered. These are, however, of use in every 
situation of this nature, and therefore in no way con- 
cerned with the special means by which the individual 
seeks to attain the end of the impulse.? 


*It is usual to class certain innate tendencies together as “in- 
stincts.” There is, however, so much diversity of opinion among 
psychologists with regard to the definition of “instinct” that the 
writer prefers to do without the term altogether. 


CHAPTER III 


SOME IMPORTANT IMPULSES 


(1) The Impulse to Avoid Danger. 
(2) The Impulse to Assert Oneself. 
(3) The Impulse to Fight. 

(4) The Impulse to Seek a Mate. 

(5) The Impulse to Protect the Weak. 
(6) The Impulse to Investigate. 

(7) The Impulse to Collect. 

(8) The Impulse to Construct. 


IF we examine the impulses with which we are 
endowed, we find that many of them are connected 
directly with self-preservation. We feel impelled to 
take food when hungry, to fight those who try to 
rob us, to avoid danger and so forth. There are, 
however, other impulses which do not act in the same 
way. The mother’s impulse to care for her offspring 
(or the parental impulse, as it is usually called) is a 
case in point. If it is strong, it will make the mother 
starve herself or fight against impossible odds, rather 
than let her young ones suffer. If it is weak, she will 
abandon them in the hour of danger and thus save 

27 


28 The Education of Behaviour 


herself at their expense. Hence the parental impulse 
may make for race preservation at the expense of self- 
preservation. As will be seen in the course of this 
chapter, there are other impulses which seem to re- 
semble it in this respect. In short, the life of every 
individual seems to be governed by two main forces: 
one which urges him to keep himself alive and well 
and another which urges him to act for the welfare of 
his race. Moreover, the various reflexes and impulses 
seem to be nothing more than so many tools which 
these primary forces have evolved for themselves in 
the course of the struggle for existence. 

Although every impulse owes its existence to its 
survival value, it must not, of course, be imagined 
that the individual is necessarily, or even frequently, 
conscious of the forces that are at work in any par- 
ticular case. Among all animals, the individual who 
loses his desire for food normally starves to death; 
among the higher animals any species which lost the 
parental impulse would rapidly cease to exist. None 
the less, the average individual never gives these 
matters a thought. Unless we are in poor health, we eat 
because we want to eat, not because it is good for us, 
and the normal mother looks after her child because 
Nature makes her feel that it is the one thing she 
wants to do, not because she is interested in, or has 
even thought about, the welfare of the race. It is only 


Some Important Impulses 29 


reflection on what we see around us that teaches us 
that reflexes and impulses must have been evolved in the 
service of self-preservation and race preservation. 

The rest of this chapter will be concerned with the 
study of such impulses as are of importance to the 
educator. The reader will find that some of these are 
obviously self-preservative, whereas others are as 
obviously race preservative. Some, such as the im- 
pulse to investigate, might, however, fall equally well 
under either head, and we do not as yet know enough 
about impulse to classify these with any certainty. It 
has, therefore, seemed better not to attempt to arrange 
the impulses in any particular order. 


(1) The Impulse to Avoid Danger 


Strong within us all is the impulse to avoid danger 
and pain, If the reader doubts this, he is advised to try 
to prick himself with a needle so as to draw blood, He 
will be surprised to find how much resistance he will 
have to overcome in order to inflict on himself so 
small an injury. It is true that the more intelligent 
among us do at times expose ourselves to avoidable 
pain, but it will be found on inquiry that our object 
is then merely to save ourselves more intense pain in 
the future. Such, for example, is our reason for sub- 
mitting to the ministration of the dentist and for work- 
ing at a compulsory examination subject for which 


30 The Education of Behaviour 


we have neither taste nor talent. Still occasionally the 
impulse to avoid pain does appear to be truly in abey- 
ance for the time being; thus the soldier will risk his 
life to save a wounded comrade and the mother will 
starve herself to have enough food for her child. All 
the same, it must not be imagined that either the soldier 
or the mother is therefore free from the capacity to 
fear pain. They are temporarily unaware of, or un- 
concerned about, their personal needs, because another 
stronger impulse is absorbing all their energy. Once 
that is satisfied, they will be found to be as anxious as 
their neighbours to escape avoidable pain and danger. 
The impulse to avoid danger and pain, and the ac- 
companying emotion of fear, are clearly important 
factors in the make-up of every individual. Their 
biological value is too obvious to need discussion. No 
doubt, some are frightened more easily than others, 
but no normal person is entirely free from the 
tendency to feel afraid. 

It is interesting to speculate whether any percepts 
produce fear innately, or whether all our particular 
fears are due to experience. (As pointed out above, 
the start at a sudden noise is of the nature of a reflex, 
because uneducable.) Fear of strangers is very com- 
mon as soon as a baby begins to distinguish the mem- 
bers of the household from other people, fear of the 
dark often seems to develop, in spite of all precautions, 


Some Important Impulses 31 


as soon as the imagination begins to become active; 
but whether these are not both merely special cases of 
the fear of the unknown, is at least open to question. 
Finally, fear of the unknown may well be the product 
of experience combined with the tendency to generalise, 
which is so characteristic of children. Hence it would 
seem that a child is born with no special fears, but 
learns to fear things which have actually produced 
pain or which seem to him to belong to the same class 
as these. 

However this may be, the child has undoubtedly 
acquired a number of special fears by the time he goes 
to school. Since they are caused by the environment, 
these fears will, of course, vary from child to child 
and from place to place. The country child is more 
likely to be afraid of tramps, the town child of bur- 
glars; both may be afraid of punishment, of being 
bullied by certain other children, or of witches and 
hobgoblins. 

Moreover, it is not only the percepts which develop 
under the pressure of the environment. The same 
applies to the methods by which the child tries to escape 
from pain and danger. Thus experience will have 
taught one that the best way to escape punishment is 
to tell a lie, another will have found it more effective 
to burst into tears, another to coax, and here and 
there a lucky child may have discovered that if only he 


32 The Education of Behaviour 


owns up manfully, the adult will understand and will 
not inflict some arbitrary punishment which is severe 
enough to produce real fear. 

The education that was begun at home is now sup- 
plemented at school. As his experience increases, the 
child begins to lose or modify some fears and to 
develop others, and again it depends on his environ- 
ment whether he learns to be afraid of the right things. 
The foolhardy boy seems to expose himself to serious 
danger for the mere joy of trying his powers, with no 
thought of what would happen to him if he made a 
false step. In the young child this tendency is often 
more apparent than real, for he does not yet know what 
is dangerous. Hence he grows more careful as his 
experience becomes wider. He will, of course, continue 
to do things that involve a certain amount of risk, for 
a slight degree of fear adds to the spice of life; but 
he will be careful to avoid anything that is likely to do 
him serious harm. Occasionally, however, we come 
across an adolescent whose exploits can only be de- 
scribed as foolhardy: it seems as though he had no 
fear, no idea of self-preservation. If we watch such 
a one closely, we shall find that his acts are done in 
a way which is calculated to attract the attention of 
others. There must be some admiring school-fellows 
who will see him accomplish his feat or at least hear 
about it, or, failing that, an adult who will scold him 


Some Important Impulses 33 


for it. In other words, his foolhardiness is due to 
his desire to attract notice, and it is therefore the 
environment that is to blame for it. 

Modern psychology has proved conclusively that an 
impulse cannot be killed. All that can be done is to 
divert its energy into different channels. A boy may 
turn to foolhardiness because he cannot satisfy his 
desire to assert himself in any other way. This desire 
is in itself normal and healthy. All it needs is a suitable 
outlet. If such a boy is, therefore, made to feel that 
he cannot attain his end by foolhardiness, and if he 
is at the same time provided with suitable means of 
satisfying his sense of his own importance, he will 
readily turn his energy into more profitable channels, 


(2) The Impulse to Assert Oneself 


The impulse to insist upon one’s rights is evidently 
as important to self-preservation as the impulse to 
avoid danger. In a primitive community, at any rate, 
the individual who is not prepared to stand up for him- 
self is likely to be deprived of anything which he has 
and which his fellows happen to covet, and even if he 
grows up in a community where this is not the case, he 
will be at a serious disadvantage if his desire for self- 
preservation is not of normal strength, for the wish 
to prove ourselves as good as our neighbours makes us 
try our powers both on persons and on things. Thus 


34 The Education of Behaviour 


we learn our limitations, thus too we are first impelled 
to acquire the skill or the knowledge which seems to 
give others an advantage over us, but which is not in 
itself sufficiently strange to arouse our curiosity. 

It has often been observed that a child tends to 
be a thorough-going egotist from the age of four 
or five to that of ten or eleven. If we listen to his 
talk we find that he is at all times occupied with him- 
self. His conversation is full of J, Me and My. If 
there is something good to be had, he wants it all, and 
finds it hard to believe that his younger brother really 
has as good a right to it as he. Yet that same child 
could be charmingly unselfish at the age of eighteen 
months or two years. Then he would, at times, be 
quite pleased to see his brother eat a piece of chocolate, 
and would display no desire to have it himself. Now 
he would consider such an arrangement most unjust. 
It may almost seem as though something had been lost 
between the ages of two and four. As a matter of 
fact, just the reverse is the case. The child of two is 
sometimes unselfish because he has not yet fully realised 
himself as an individual. In so far as he has realised 
himself, he will be found to be at least as selfish as the 
child of five. 

The contrast between self and non-self is acquired 
gradually through experience. The first glimmerings 
of it must arise in the mind of the tiny baby when he 


Some Important Impulses 35 


discovers that his toes are his own in a sense in which 
his bottle and his nurse are not. As he grows older 
the child gets an idea of himself as a person who can 
walk, who can ask for what he wants, who is clever or 
stupid, good or naughty, as the case may be. More- 
over, whatever his opinion of himself, he is at this 
stage primarily interested in himself. And it is good 
that it should be so. He must understand himself at 
least superficially before he can attempt to understand 
others, and he must have had struggles of his own 
before he can sympathise with their difficulties. 

At times he may become unpleasantly self-assertive, 
but that is entirely the fault of the environment. To 
take a case in point. A very bright little girl of six 
was in the upper transition class of a kindergarten, but 
was considered too young to be moved to the first form. 
She began to rule the roost with a vengeance. Every 
child in the class had to obey her. There was no peace 
if she was not the leader in every game. Finally the 
school authorities were persuaded to put her into the 
first form in spite of her youth. There was a change 
almost alarming in its suddenness. Our young mis- 
chief-maker became docile and amenable, ready to 
take any part that was assigned to her by the others 
in their free play. If we provide the right companions 
and the right standards, the child will never have the 
opportunity to think himself abnormally clever, ap- 


36 The Education of Behaviour 


preciation will only spur him on to further effort, and 
his very self-assertion can be used to teach him a certain 
amount of consideration for others. 

As the child approaches adolescence he becomes 
more sensitive to public opinion. If the environment 
is favourable, he therefore learns not to be too 
obviously self-assertive. This does not mean that his 
interest in himself becomes less: that remains through- 
out life one of the primary forces which urge us to 
make the best of ourselves. All that happens is that 
the small displays of power which please the young 
child are no longer good enough for us as we grow 
older. We need something more: things that may take 
us years to achieve, that may mean months of uncon- 
genial work, but that are intended to prove to ourselves 
and to others that we are persons of some consequence. 
And if an individual fails to discover an outlet of this 
kind, we find him seeking one in acts of petty tyranny, 
in foolhardiness, in harebrained schemes that would 
not stand ten minutes’ unprejudiced criticism, or in 
some form of unhealthy suppression, such as abnormal 
sensitiveness to the opinion of others. 


(3) The Impulse to Fight 


Closely allied to the impulse to assert oneself is 
the impulse to fight. If our opponent refuses to give 
way, and if he is not strong enough to arouse our 


Some Important Impulses 37 


fears, then our self-assertion impels us to fight him. 
As was pointed out in Chapter II, the obstruction of 
any impulse may make us fight, but probably self- 
assertion is roused whenever the free functioning of 
an impulse is checked by a preventable cause, so that 
it is more correct to say that self-assertion is the im- 
mediate cause of pugnacity. Beyond this, it is at this 
stage unnecessary to add anything to what was said in 
that chapter. 


(4) The Impulse to Seek a Mate 


The mating impulse, the impulse which drives each 
fully developed individual to seek a mate, is un- 
doubtedly the most primitive of all race-preservative 
impulses. Only among the lowliest organisms is there 
as yet no need for it. Thus the microscopic amceba 
simply divides into two equal halves when it has grown 
to a certain size. Each of these halves then continues 
its independent life, and grows on until it in turn has 
reached its limit of growth and divides. In other 
simple forms of life the young individual grows on 
the parent until big enough to shift for itself. In 
others he begins life as a single cell or spore. In all 
these cases a single parent is sufficient to produce the 
new individual. 

Very early in the story of life Nature seems, how- 
ever, to have discovered that better results are obtained 


38 The Education of Behaviour 


by making the production of the new individual depend 
on the collaboration of two parents, and gradually these 
two parents have become differentiated into what we 
know now as male and female. 

Along with this differentiation of function there 
must have developed an impulse to drive the two sexes 
to seek each other, since a species would necessarily 
become extinct if it lost the power of individual propa- 
gation without acquiring this impulse. The mating 
impulse is, therefore, one of the most ancient and well- 
established of our impulses. It may perhaps be worth 
while to insist once more that there is no thought of 
race preservation, even in the minds of human beings, 
when the impulse functions normally. The individual 
experiences nothing beyond a more or less intense long- 
ing for some member of the opposite sex, and race 
preservation is about the last explanation he would 
give, if called upon to account for this longing. 

To sum up, natural selection, acting through untold 
ages, has caused the mating impulse to become one of 
the strongest tendencies with which we are endowed. 
In its pure form it simply drives each individual to 
find a mate to his liking without further considerations 
of any kind. 

The stronger an impulse, the more difficult it is to 
learn to control it wisely, and it is clearly a condition 
of community life that the mating impulse should be 


Some Important Impulses 39 


held in check. One would, therefore, expect parents 
and teachers to give much thought to this difficult sub- 
ject, but as a matter of fact it is one of the things that 
both home and school seem to think safe to leave to 
chance. 

It is difficult to say at what age the child would 
become aware of the impulse of his own accord, 
because the environment does so much to affect its 
development. Children watch their elders much more 
closely than these always realise. In some surround- 
ings children of six or eight may discover that it is 
“srown up” to be more especially interested in mem- 
bers of the opposite sex; in others they may as readily 
learn that it is in some way wrong to do so. Thus 
there may be preference for the opposite sex at quite 
an early age, but this is the exception rather than the 
rule if the children grow up in an environment in which 
boys and girls are treated alike. In so far as there is 
any differentiation at the age of 8 and g it would 
rather seem to be in favour of the same sex. A little 
later there is no longer any doubt about it; the boy 
then plays only with boys, the girl only with girls. 
This may last months or years. Where develop- 
ment is checked the individual may never outgrow 
it. However, as a rule, the adolescent begins to be 
interested in the opposite sex sometime between twelve 
and eighteen, If he is growing up in a community 


4o The Education of Behaviour 


in which boys and girls work together on equal terms, 
these early flirtations may be taken to be part of his 
normal development. If the boy can only meet the 
girl rarely, and then by stealth, the matter is far 
more serious; but that is the fault of the environ- 
ment, not of the adolescents. Finally, if each is care- 
fully kept from the other, those in whom these 
tendencies are strong will find an outlet in excessive 
friendship with a member of their own sex. As is 
well known to any one who has worked in boarding- 
schools, these friendships are at least as absorbing as 
boy and girl flirtations, and they do little or nothing 
to prepare the individual for normal adult life. 

If the school is to do its duty by the community, 
it will evidently have to teach its pupils to control 
this vital impulse without repressing it. This will 
be an extremely difficult task so long as the sexes are 
kept apart at school, for such a line of action can only 
encourage repression in some pupils and lead to under- 
hand behaviour in others. Probably the only way to 
prevent either of these alternatives is to establish a 
system of co-education schools in which boys and girls 
can learn to meet each other naturally on an equal 
footing. It is, of course, essential that such schools 
should be staffed with men and women who are alive to 
the importance of their task and able to give the right 
kind of guidance at the right moment; but if these are 


Some Important Impulses 4l 


secured, the vast majority of the pupils who attend 
such schools would undoubtedly develop into indi- 
viduals who have learnt self-control without repression. 

We said above that the average school at present 
leaves the education of the mating impulse to chance. 
It may be objected to this that definite attempts have 
been made to give boys and girls sex instruction at 
school, and that teachers have even been given the 
opportunity of acquiring such knowledge as will enable 
them to give this instruction effectively. Now there 
can be no doubt that all boys and girls should have 
instruction in this matter before they are expected to 
be responsible for their own actions, but no one who 
has really grasped what is meant by impulse will 
imagine that such instruction will by itself ensure self- 
control. Knowledge is needed to satisfy the impulse 
to investigate which is aroused by the mystery which 
surrounds the origin of children, and is further stimu- 
lated by the unwillingness of the average adult to give 
the young inquirer satisfactory answers to his ques- 
tions. When the child finds that the ordinary channels 
of information are closed against him, self-assertion 
tends to be roused as well, with the result that he 
tries other means of solving his problem. In this way 
the child runs the risk of obtaining his information in 
such a form that it develops in him fixed likes and 
dislikes which may work serious harm at a later stage. 


42 The Education of Benacione 


There can, therefore, be no doubt that suitable sex 
instruction has its place in the education of the indi- 
vidual. 

Whether it is wise to give this instruction to large 
classes of adolescents as part of the ordinary curricu- 
lum is another matter. It must be borne in mind that 
home training teaches the average child to think of 
everything connected with sex as secret and mysteri- 
ous: it is a thing “nice” people do not talk about in 
public. At the age of twelve or thirteen this idea has 
become part of the mental equipment of the boy or girl, 
and the teacher who is willing to discuss this tabooed 
subject in class is therefore likely to rouse resentment. 
Ideally, the instruction should undoubtedly be given by 
the parent, who should answer questions simply and 
truthfully as they arise. In this way every child 
would know all that 1s essential long before he reaches 
the difficult years of adolescence. Where the parents 
shirk their duty, the school has of necessity to step 
in. It might, however, be argued to some effect that 
it would be better for the school to follow the example 
of the parents in this instance, until it has learnt to pro- 
vide something more adequate than wholesale class 
instruction. 

We see, then, that suitable sex instruction is essential 
to satisfy the impulse to investigate and to ensure the 
right attitude towards the subject. Beyond this, 


Some Important Impulses 43 


the function of the environment is largely that of 
stimulating the right ideals and of providing plenty 
of outlets for superfluous nervous energy. The 
full bearing of this will be seen more clearly after 
reading the chapter on Sentiments and Complexes. 


(5) The Impulse to Protect the Weak 


In its primitive form the parental impulse may only 
have prompted the mother to look after her own 
children. Under the influence of our gregarious habits 
and our growing imagination, the percepts that waken 
it have, however, increased in number, until to-day the 
fact that a person is weaker or younger than ourselves 
is as a rule quite sufficient to make us wish to help 
him, even though that person be a perfect stranger to 
us. The more dependent an individual is upon us, the 
more likely are we to feel for him an affection similar 
to that which the mother feels for her child. In order 
to emphasise this we shall therefore refer to the 
tendency as the impulse to protect the weak, or the 
“protective impulse.” 

It is difficult to say at what age this impulse begins 
to develop in children, because it is often impossible 
to judge how much of what we observe is due to imita- 
tion, how much to self-assertion, and how much to 
a true impulse to look after some one younger or 
weaker. Occasionally, however, we come across Cases 


44 The Education of Behaviour 


which can hardly be explained in any other way. Thus 
a child of five will at times be wonderfully patient in 
playing with a baby who is just old enough to be a 
nuisance rather than a help in his games. ‘Thus, too, 
children’s play with their dolls or teddy bears is often 
too realistic to be due to mere imitation. 

The healthy development of the protective impulse 
is evidently of as great importance to the community 
as that of the mating impulse, yet it receives almost as 
little attention after the first few years of school life. 

In a good kindergarten children soon discover the 
pleasure of helping and looking after others, for the 
older children are encouraged to help the younger ones 
in various ways, and each class has pets and animals for 
whose welfare it is held responsible. This training has 
the further advantage of teaching the children that the 
protective impulse is not one which they can indulge 
capriciously, for the child or pet who has been entrusted 
to their care is liable to suffer in a way which they 
can appreciate, if it does not receive its fair share of 
attention. Thus they get the first inkling of the fact 
that we have to consider the needs of others at least 
as much as our own desires when we follow the 
promptings of this impulse. 

It is obviously of great importance to the com- 
munity that this attitude of mind should be encouraged 
in every possible way and it is therefore the business 


Some Important Impulses 45 


of the school to provide the child with suitable ex- 
perience. This could be done quite easily in connection 
with children’s desire to help each other in their lessons, 
if they were taught that it is right to help so long as 
they give real help, that is to say, help which makes 
the other child able to tackle his own difficulties with 
greater success on the next occasion. Ina school which 
has succeeded in establishing the right attitude towards 
work, the older children would teach each other this 
lesson without aid from the teachers, for the would-be 
helper would find the wrong kind of help rejected with 
scorn, and would thus be forced either to abandon the 
task or to give help which is worth having. 

Training of this kind, especially if supplemented by 
similar training at home, should produce an individual 
who is at least desirous of giving the right kind of aid 
when need arises, and who is able both to give it with- 
out any undue feeling of superiority and to receive it 
without loss of self-respect. The giving of help to 
those whom we consider our social inferiors raises 
further difficulties. It will, however, be more con- 
venient to study these in connection with sympathy 
and pity in the chapter on emotion. 

In conclusion, it may be worth while to warn the 
reader that the protective impulse is very dependent on 
the environment for the “inlets” and “outlets” it 
acquires, because acts that were originally prompted by 


46 The Education of Behaviour 


it may easily be repeated to satisfy the love of self. 
Thus children who are continually helping others with- 
out receiving similar help themselves and children who 
give away their toys in the sure knowledge that they 
will be replaced in the immediate future are practically 
being taught to use helping and giving as outlets for 
self-assertiveness. If this attitude of mind becomes 
fixed, such children are likely to grow into individuals 
who are more interested in the publicity than in the 
value of their help. It is, of course, not to be expected 
that an act of help should be free from every tinge of 
self-assertion, since any such act necessarily gives us 
a feeling of power and thus reacts on our love of self. 
What is wanted is that the act should be due primarily 
to the desire to help and only secondarily and in a 
minor degree to the love of self. 


(6) The Impulse to Investigate 


Things which are strange or new arouse in us the 
desire to find out more about them unless they are 
either of a nature to cause fear or so much outside the 
sphere of our interests—whether permanent or tempo- 
rary—that they do not attract our attention at all. Thus 
a sudden fall in the barometer is likely to stimulate the 
curiosity of the budding meteorolgist, to whom it means 
a chance of putting his knowledge to the test, whereas 
it may rouse fear in the sailor, who thinks that it 


Some Important Impulses 47 


forbodes an exceptionally severe gale, and may leave a 
third person quite indifferent, either because he does 
not understand barometers, or because the recorded fall 
only suggests the possibility of a heavy shower at a 
time when the state of the weather is of no interest to 
him. The case with which we are concerned in this 
section is the first, namely, that in which there is just 
enough knowledge to rouse the desire for more, and no 
occasion to experience fear. _ 

It is sometimes said that the young child is more 
curious than the adult, but this is hardly a correct 
statement of the case. The young child comes across 
so many things that are new to him that he is con- 
tinually having experiences which puzzle him. He is, 
however, satisfied with very superficial answers to his 
queries: the child of two usually only wants the name 
of an object: this is a book, that a doll. A little later he 
begins to ask, What is this for? Why is that? but very 
simple answers are still sufficient; a child of four will 
for instance be quite satisfied, if he is told, ““Because the 
sun has gone down,” in answer to the question, ‘“Why 
is it getting dark?” This superficial curiosity must of 
necessity decrease as the child’s knowledge of his 
environment increases; on the other hand, such 
questions as he asks tend to become more searching, 
for every explanation itself suggests a further problem: 
thus, the child who knows that the ‘‘sun goes down’”’ at 


48 The Education of Behaviour 


night will presently begin to wonder why it goes, or 
where it goes. How a child’s desire for knowledge 
develops at this stage depends largely on his environ- 
ment, for he is still absolutely dependent on others for 
answers to his problems. If he is made to feel that it 
is “naughty” to worry his elders with questions, or if 
he is given explanations which he himself knows to 
be inadequate or incorrect, he is likely to give up his 
attempts in despair, and turn his attention to some- 
thing else. (Cf. account of “Anna” in Chapter V, pp. 
84-85. ) 

In the average environment the people on whom the 
child depends for his knowledge will answer some 
questions more readily than others, with the result that 
he gets to know more about certain classes of things 
and therefore presently becomes more interested in 
them, though the others still present numerous problems 
which he would gladly tackle, if he had the chance. 
At the age of ten or eleven many an intelligent child 
wonders whether he will ever get like those dull adults 
who seem to be quite satisfied to go through the world 
without understanding half the interesting things 
which are going on around them. By the time he is 
eighteen he has, however, usually learnt the necessity 
of confining his investigations to a few problems, if 
he has not, indeed, given them up altogether as the 
result of lack of opportunity or lack of time. Adoles- 


Some Important Impulses 49 


cence is thus the period during which the impulse to 
investigate is normally driven into more or less fixed 
channels, with the result that the youth’s superficial 
interest in all kinds of things decreases while his in- 
terest in a few special pursuits becomes greater and 
deeper. These pursuits need not, of course, be utili- 
tarian in any sense of the word. When the impulse to 
investigate is at work by itself, we want to find out a 
thing merely in order to know more about it, and are 
not concerned with the material gain or loss which such 
knowledge may involve. 

Under favourable circumstances the impulse will 
drive us to intellectual efforts throughout life. As 
things are at. present, economic conditions unfortu- 
nately often cause it to deteriorate during later 
adolescence, for monotony of life tends to deprive the 
individual of the necessary stimulus and too long hours 
at mechanical work leave him no energy for strenuous 
mental effort in his leisure moments. Thus, many a 
bright, promising youth finds after some years of 
factory life that his neighbours’ affairs and sensational 
stories give him all the mental food he needs. Yet it 
is of the greatest social importance that the impulse 
should be encouraged in any one who has enough 
ability to turn it to good account, for we owe most of 
our inventions and discoveries to it. The desire to 
investigate is, moreover, the only force which makes us 


50 The Education of Behaviour 


want to find out things that are of no immediate use 
to us by urging us to work at our problems for the 
sheer love of the work. Thanks to it, men will spend 
their lives in investigations which seem to lead nowhere 
so far as practical applications are concerned until the 
world is suddenly startled by a discovery of such 
obvious practical value as for instance that of X-ray 
photography. 

On the whole, the impulse to investigate is probably 
of greater value to the group than to the individual ; 
in primitive life it must indeed often have led the 
unwary investigator to his own destruction. His group 
would, however, receive benefit from his work whether 
he succeeded or failed, for his success would increase 
their knowledge or power, whereas his failure would, 
at least, prevent those who were present from making 
the same mistake. Under modern conditions the risk 
to the individuals is not so great, but it is, of course, a 
common thing for the inventor of a really valuable 
mechanism to reap little or no material benefit from his 
work, 


(7) The Impulse to Collect 


Every one who has dealt with young children knows 
that they go through a stage when they seem to enjoy 
collecting for its own sake. It may be that we have 
here the stirring of an ancient impulse similar to that 


Some Important Impulses 51 


which makes the squirrel collect its store of nuts. It 
has, however, become a true impulse in human beings, 
for it depends entirely on his environment and on his 
more or less fixed interests what a particular individual 
happens to collect. At five years of age town children 
are usually satisfied with tramway tickets or cigarette 
cards, later most boys at any rate turn to stamps, later 
still rare flowers or fossils may have their turn. During 
adolescence the individual grows too self-conscious to 
remain satisfied with purposeless accumulations of odds 
and ends, and the things he collects (e.g. botany speci- 
mens) have, therefore, to be of some value to him, that 
is to say they have to satisfy his self-assertion or his 
desire to know as well as his impulse to collect; but in 
this modified form the impulse stays with us throughout 
life; it makes some amass property, others books, 
others china, etc. As in the case of the child, what we 
collect depends on our interests and on our opportu- 
nities; but there are very few individuals who are not 
at least trying to satisfy this impulse in some way or 
other. 


(8) The Impulse to Construct 


Another impulse which is of great importance to 
the educator is the impulse to construct or make. In 
its pure form this impulse simply urges us to be 
making, without any regard for the value of the ob- 


52 The Education of Behaviour 


ject we produce, The joy lies in the making as such; 
once the deed is done it only continues to give us 
pleasure in so far as it satisfies some other desire. 
We have reason to believe that the impulse to con- 
struct develops at a very early age. Thus the way in 
which some babies invent a language of their own, 
instead of adopting that of their environment, suggests 
that it may already be active at the age of twelve to 
eighteen months, though the child has as yet too little 
control over his environment to do much to satisfy 
it. Every one who has watched babies must have 
observed that the child sets to work on his environ- 
ment as soon as he has the necessary control over his 
muscles. At first he is only investigating and ex- 
perimenting. At this stage he feels, tastes and pulls 
to pieces everything that comes within his reach and 
thus gets his first knowledge of the things around 
him. By the age of two and a half he has, however, 
usually begun to make as well as destroy, though it is 
at times difficult to say whether it is the making or 
the experimenting which he is enjoying. A child will, 
for instance, build up a heap of bricks again and again, 
only to throw them down with a bang. Then gradu- 
ally, as his knowledge of his little world increases, he 
spends more and more time in constructing. At first 
bricks, clay, sand and coloured chalks are his best 
material, but as his control over his muscles increases 


Some Important Impulses 53 


he is ready to learn the use of a hammer, saw, needle, 
etc., and thus becomes able to handle less tractable 
material. At the age of six or seven he begins to con- 
struct in the realm of ideas as well, making up stories 
of his own or inventing imaginative games. Later, he 
may try inventing puzzles or setting himself problems 
for his own solution; thus a child of eight who had 
exceptional facility for number work set himself to find 
out exactly how many hours he had lived. How a 
particular child develops must, of course, depend partly 
on his natural ability and partly on his environment, 
but no normal child is without the impulse to make, 
and it is therefore important to see that he learns to 
use it to his advantage. 

Like the impulse to investigate, the impulse to con- 
struct tends to remain active in its pure form through- 
out life. Any one who doubts this should watch 
parents helping children to make sand castles or fly 
kites or build and sail toy boats. It is true that the 
parents begin in order to please the children, but they 
often get so interested in their task that they are 
seriously annoyed, if the young helper does some- 
thing which spoils their work, even though it obviously 
adds to his enjoyment to see whether he cannot do this 
bit by himself. 

The strength and permanence of the impulse to 
construct and the impulse to investigate should be borne 


54 The Education of Behaviour 


in mind by all educators. Anything which involves 
making always attracts children of all ages, and if it 
necessitates finding out how to make as a preliminary 
stage, it is even more popular, so long as the task is 
not too difficult and there are no artificial penalties 
attached to failure and waste of material. As in every 
other case, so here again, success feeds the love of self, 
but it is the fault of the environment if it does this 
unduly. Under favourable conditions the effects of 
such training are to help the pupil to find his level, to 
teach him to think for himself to the best of his ability, 
and hence to divert his love of making into channels 
in which he is likely to achieve something. In this 
way his training during childhood and adolescence may 
enable the individual to produce work of value to him- 
self and to his community; but even if it is not able 
to achieve this, it will at any rate add greatly to his 
power of enjoying life, by providing him with hobbies 
which make it possible for him to satisfy the ever- 
active impulse to construct. 


CHAPTER IV 
SENTIMENTS AND COMPLEXES 


A. The Sentiment as a Centre of Potential Activity. 
B. The Origin and Growth of Sentiments :— 
(1) The part played by impulsive activity. 


(2) The part played by the environment. 
The influence of the parent. 
The influence of the community. 
The meaning and function of hero worship. 


(3) The part played by the “self.” 
C. The Effect of Sentiments on the Formation of Habits and 


Judgments. 
D. Mind-Tunnelling by the Method of Free Associations :— 


(1) Description of the method. 
(2) Repressed complexes and their effect on behaviour. 
(3) The value of mind-tunnelling in connection with 
repressed complexes. 
E. Gregariousness as a Centre of Potential Activity :— 


(1) The psychology of gregariousness. 
(2) The relation of gregariousness to love of approval, 
suggestion and imitation. 


A. The Sentiment as a Centre of Potential Activity 

It has been shown in the preceding chapters that all 

voluntary action is primarily due to impulse. But 
55 


56 The Education of Behaviour 


impulse is always momentary. In so far as life is 
governed by it, each moment is sufficient unto itself, 
and it is therefore impossible to regulate action with 
regard to future ends or to feel regret for past mis- 
takes. Many animals never rise above this level; in 
human beings it is, however, merely a stage of develop- 
ment that is passed through during the first months 
of life. As is well known, the attention of a baby is 
easily attracted now to this, now to that; his desires 
are merely momentary, and a thing need only disappear 
in order to be forgotten. But even the child of two 
is not so easily satisfied in regard to things he really 
knows, such as his favourite doll or the dog who 
jumped at him, for he is beginning to develop fixed 
likes and dislikes, or “sentiments,” as they are called 
technically. (For definition of sentiment, see p. 59.) 

There is no limit to the persons, animals or things 
for whom we can form sentiments, since there is no 
limit to the objects of thought which we can learn to 
like or dislike. Popular usage has provided us with 
special names for certain types. Thus we call the oc- 
cupations we like our interests or hobbies, and the 
standards of behaviour of which we approve our prin- 
ciples, or, if difficult to realise in practice, our ideals. 
In the case of persons, we can even distinguish between 
various grades of likes and dislikes, for we talk of 
friends, enemies and “mere acquaintances.” 


Sentiments and Complexes _—_57 


It will be evident that sentiments are of the greatest 
importance in the development of the individual. In 
so far as he has formed fixed likes and dislikes, he will 
necessarily have fixed desires, and in so far as he has 
fixed desires, he will act consistently, and will therefore 
attain far more than while entirely under the sway of 
impulse. An example may make this clear. The 
child of three or four who is left to his own devices 
with a mechanical toy usually tries to pull it to pieces 
in order to find out what makes it go, but once he has 
broken it he quickly loses all interest in it, for the 
separate parts mean nothing to him. The boy of nine 
or ten who is interested in mechanisms also likes to pull 
such a toy to pieces, but he will occupy himself with 
it for a much longer time, because he will have a certain 
amount of knowledge which he can bring to bear on 
the problems it presents. His interest in mechanisms 
also has other important consequences: it stimulates 
him to learn more about them, and thus leads him to 
examine them or to ask questions about points that 
puzzle him. If his desire to learn is really strong, 
it also teaches him the value of perseverance in the face 
of difficulty and may even enable him to overcome 
some contrary tendency such as dislike for reading or 
indifference to accuracy. Under favourable circum- 
stances his interest in mechanics can therefore make a 
boy act consistently towards one end and subordinate 


58 The Education of Behaviour 


such impulses and sentiments as are inimical to that 
end. 

Once a sentiment has been formed it may under 
suitable conditions rouse any of our impulses. Thus 
the love parents feel for their child will make them 
fear anything likely to hurt him and attack any one 
unjust to him. It may also make them collect (1. e. 
save) for his benefit, or investigate various problems 
connected with his welfare. Similarly a student’s in- 
terest in botany may make him fear that he may not 
be able to find sufficient time for it or dislike persons 
who try to interfere with his studies. If the sentiment 
is strong enough, it may even set free enough self- 
assertion to enable him to overcome a strong dislike 
for some other subject which he needs for his chosen 
line of study. On the other hand, it is impossible for 
the student to feel indifferent about anything which 
concerns his progress in botany, just as it is impos- 
sible for the parent to feel indifferent about anything 
which he considers connected with the welfare of his 
child. Obviously both student and parent may think 
it wise to seem indifferent on a particular occasion, but 
that is then due to the activity of some other, contrary 
tendency. 

Thus a sentiment for any object of thought (that is to 
say, the child and the botany in our last two examples) 
ensures that we are interested in anything which affects 


Sentiments and Complexes _59 


that object and that we act consistently in regard to 
it, in so far as we are not checked by other contrary 
tendencies. A sentiment may therefore be defined as 
a system of impulses organised round the idea of some 
object of thought, in such a way as to ensure consist- 
ency of behaviour in regard to that object, except in 
so far as this is prevented by the activity of other 
contrary tendencies.} 

Although it was convenient to describe sentiments 
as likes and dislikes in the first instance, this would 
not be satisfactory as a definition, for it suggests that 
they are mere attitudes of mind, whereas they are 
really centres of potential activity of which we become 
aware through our likes and dislikes. They are, in 
fact, somewhat like the batteries which are used for 
storing electrical power, the “object” of the sentiment 
being represented by the mechanism of the battery, the 
requisite percept or idea by an operator who is able 
to discharge the battery, the acts and thoughts which 
can be produced in this way by the motors and lamps 
to which the operator can distribute the stored power 
and the energy of which we are aware when a senti- 


*Mr. Shand, to whom psychology owes this use of the term 
“sentiment,” defines it as a system of “emotional tendencies.” As 
his use of the term “emotion” is, however, rather different from 
that adopted here, it seems better to modify his definition as 
above. 


60 The Education of Behaviour 


ment is being stimulated by the power which he is 
setting free. 


B. The Origin and Growth of Sentiments 


(1) The Part Played by Impulsive Activity.— 
While the environment provides as it were the raw 
material for sentiments, it would be a mistake to sup- 
pose that two children who are brought up in identical 
surroundings would necessarily acquire the same 
centres of potential activity, for there is undoubtedly 
something within the individua! which decides how his 
impulses become organised round various objects of 
thought. Some are frightened when others are 
angered; some enjoy constructive or inventive work 
to an extent which seems quite incredible to others. 
These individual differences are, of course, partly due 
to differences of environment; but they must be partly 
innate, for they can be observed in quite young child- 
ren. Moreover the same child differs from day to 
day. There are times when he is not happy unless he 
is making or creating, and these are followed by others 
when he seems to have lost all initiative. It is dif- 
ficult to account for these phenomena unless we assume 
that impulses can in some way become surcharged 
with energy from the self-preservative and race-pre- 
servative centres and that this energy will then expend 
itself on any object, however unpromising, if it can- 


Sentiments and Complexes _ 61 


not find an outlet through an established sentiment. 
This may be called true “impulsive activity.” It is 
characteristic of children rather than of adults, for 
impulsive energy seems to discharge through estab- 
lished centres of potential activity whenever there are 
such at its disposal.? 

When an overflow of energy has caused an im- 
pulse to expend itself on some new object, the result 
may be pleasant or unpleasant. In either case the 
object is henceforth a matter of interest to self, and 
thus a centre of potential activity. If the result was 
pleasant, that object is likely to be chosen purpose- 
fully, if unpleasant, it is likely to be avoided when next 
that impulse is in need of an outlet. What happens 
thereafter depends on circumstances. The little child 
who is expending his constructive impulse on clay- 
modelling and on pencil-drawing may discover that the 
clay model looks more like the real thing, or that it 
receives more praise from his elders. In either case 
he will learn to prefer the clay to the pencil: in an un- 
wise environment he may even take a lasting dislike 

1What is loosely termed an “impulsive” act is often only due 
to the activity of a centre of which we are not aware. The 
reader will find later that centres of potential activity can affect 
our behaviour without our being aware of their existence (cf. 
Repressed Complexes, p. 83). The term impulsive activity should, 
however, be restricted to cases in which acts are performed for 


the first time under the pressure of an impulse which is sur- 
charged with energy. 


62 The Education of Behaviour 


to pencil-work. All the same, clay ceases to provide 
a satisfactory outlet for his constructive impulse when 
he is a little older, for he then wants to make toys that 
“work’’ and consequently prefers to use cardboard 
or wood. From the adult’s point of view he has lost 
his interest in clay-modelling and has taken a fancy to 
cardboard-modelling or woodwork instead. What has 
really happened is that he has had to find a new out- 
let for his constructive impulse, because the clay is no 
longer able to satisfy his needs. In other words, an 
interest only lasts so long as it satisfies a need of the 
self, and since the needs of a child change as his powers 
develop, it is not strange to find that his interests are, 
as a rule, very unstable. The same applies to his 
other sentiments, and the reason is also the same. We 
have to remember that the child is still learning the 
meaning of experiences which the adult has “under- 
stood” for many a year. In this process he necessarily 
makes mistakes, and when he feels that he has made 
one, he thereby destroys or modifies one or other of 
his sentiments. 

As we grow older, our sentiments tend to become 
more permanent, because we gradually succeed in 
classifying our common experiences to our own satis- 
faction. All the same, we continue to form senti- 
ments as long as we are mentally active and some of 
these are always temporary, because they depend on 


Sentiments and Complexes 63 


temporary circumstances. Thus a worker is often 
afraid of a new mechanism until he has learnt to control 
it, but once he is master of the situation, he is likely to 
grow more and more careless, until his very self- 
assurance causes him to expose himself to a serious 
accident. In such a case the organisation of impulses 
round the idea of the mechanism has gradually changed 
from one in which fear was the main factor to one in 
which self-assertion is predominant. In other cases 
the adult, like the child, may lose all interest in an oc- 
cupation because it is no longer able to give him the 
stimulus he requires; it may merely have grown too 
easy to be attractive. 

(2) The Part Played by the Environment.—We 
have seen that sentiments may owe their existence to 
an experimental overflow of energy. At first many 
centres of potential activity must come into existence 
in this way, for the environment has at first no mean- 
ing for the child. It would be convenient to have a 
special term for these systems (which we probably 
share with many of the higher animals), but there is 
at present no recognised name for them. We shall 
here call them primitive complexes, for the word sen- 
timent implies a degree of self-consciousness which the 
baby does not acquire for some time (and which most 
animals probably do not acquire at all). As the child 
becomes aware of himself as an individual, these 


64 The Education of Behaviour 


“primitive complexes” become true sentiments in so 
far as they satisfy the needs of the self. The range 
of his activities is, however, no longer limited by 
chance discoveries, for his behaviour is influenced 
increasingly by other forces, such as love of power 
or desire for approval, and these cause him to engage 
in occupations in which some of his impulses are only 
satisfied incidentally. 

What centres of potential activity he acquires will, 
of course, still depend to some extent on the innate 
characteristics of his impulses, but the influence of the 
environment makes itself felt more and more strongly 
as the child begins to be able to put meaning into his 
experience. In order to see how energy is diverted 
from one object of thought to another and what is 
the part played by the self in the process, it will be 
necessary to trace some of our sentiments back to their 
origin. Theoretically this should not be a difficult task, 
but the reader will find that it is often impossible in 
practice. We seem always to have thought this right 
and that wrong, to have liked this person and disliked 
that other, or, again, we seem to have conceived a sud- 
den fancy for some person, thing or idea, and that 
fancy seems to have come from nowhere so far as we 
can tell. 

If we leave these aside for the moment, we are left 
with a certain number of cases in which it seems pos- 


Sentiments and Complexes _—_ 65 


sible to give a satisfactory explanation. Introspection 
seems to show that the sentiments for which we can 
account owe their existence either to other previously 
established sentiments or to some severe emotional 
shock. Under the first heading come many of our 
interests, for these can usually be shown to have 
developed out of pursuits which we first took up under 
the influence of some one we admired. Under the 
second heading come such sentiments as the fear of 
bathing induced by a narrow escape from drowning 
in childhood, or lifelong admiration for another person 
originated by the skill with which he helped us at a 
critical moment. It should be noticed that the second 
type really depends as much as the first on previously 
established sentiments, for there would have been no 
emotional shock had there been no love of living in the 
one case, or desire to succeed in the other. We may 
therefore conclude that all sentiments which we can 
trace to their origin are derived from other previously 
established sentiments of one kind or another. 

If we now examine the sentiments that seem to come 
from nowhere, we shall see that most of these are 
formed in the same way. To the young child the adult 
is a wonderful person who can do all kinds of marvel- 
lous things which he finds difficult or impossible to 
copy. During the earliest years of his life, the child 
is, moreover, absolutely dependent on his parents. Com- 


66 The Education of Behaviour 


pared with his weakness and ignorance, they must 
seem all-powerful and all-wise. Hence they are 
normally his first heroes. If they praise an act, that 
act is worth copying, or if it was impulsive, it is worth 
repeating; if they like a person, that person must be 
“nice,” even though the child at first dislikes both act 
and person. Thus he adopts their point of view, or 
what he imagines to be their point of view, through 
sheer prestige suggestion. Our oldest sentiments are 
therefore to be traced back to those earliest years of 
life for which our memory is notoriously bad. This 
accounts for the impression that we have “always” 
had them. 

As for the love of the child for his parents, that is 
at first largely, if not entirely, cupboard love.t As 
soon as he is able to distinguish his mother from other 
persons, everything she does for him must strengthen 
the impression that she is the giver of good things. 
Thus the idea of “mother” soon becomes closely con- 
nected with the idea of “giver of good things.” In 
technical language these ideas become so closely as- 
sociated one with the other that each tends before long 


*I was watching lately a class of mentally deficient children 
whose mental development was that of children aged four to 
six. The teacher asked them: “Why do you love your mother ?” 
She wanted the answer, “Because mother loves me.” She got, 
“Because mother makes puddings.” “Because mother puts me 
to bed.” “Because mother gives me pennies,” etc., etc. 


Sentiments and Complexes _ 67 


to produce the other of its own accord. The child goes 
confidently to his parents, if he wants something and 
is willing to believe that even the medicine and the 
punishments which they mete out are really intended 
for his good. From a very early age there is mixed 
with this a desire for fondling and petting, which is 
the first indication of “love” in the ordinary sense of 
the word. It is, however, entirely egotistic at this 
stage, and therefore really only a particular form of 
“cupboard love.” 

Later the sentiment grows in complexity. Watch- 
ing their parents as closely as they do, children soon 
discover that the attitude of father towards mother 
differs in some respects from that of mother towards 
father. As soon as they have reached this stage, the 
little boy tries to imitate his father, the little girl her 
mother, and this necessarily affects their sentiments 
for the parent of the opposite sex, e.g. the mother is 
now for the boy not only the giver of good things, but 
also some one he must look after and protect. 

A further stage is reached when the child has realised 
the existence of a community outside his own family 
circle. Unless he is exceptionally unfortunate in his 
parents, he discovers that they are respected by other 
members of their group, and that at least one or other 
of them is the leader of some section of it. Various 
forces within him are urging him to go and do like- 


68 The Education of Behaviour 


wise. He is therefore impressed by the fact that his 
parents have attained in the world of adults the very 
thing for which he is struggling among his school- 
fellows, and his sentiment towards his parents is thus 
once again increased in complexity. 

For the present purpose the important thing to 
notice is that the child of five or six has under normal 
conditions learnt to love and admire his parents, and 
has for some time already been sufficiently conscious 
of himself as an individual to do his utmost to imitate 
them at all points. When he comes to school, he is 
for the first time exposed to the influence of public 
opinion, and it is therefore important to know how this 
will affect the development of the sentiments which he 
has acquired at home. Observation seems to show 
that he readily falls in with those things which are in 
accordance with, or at least not contrary to, his home 
training, and that he struggles against, but as a rule 
succumbs to, those things which do not fit in with 
it. 

This is especially the case with the child who is first 
exposed to contrary influences at the age of eight or 
ten. At this stage the desire to form into gangs has 
become fairly strong, with the result that the child 
longs above all things to be like his companions, and 
will often do things which he “knows” to be wrong 
rather than expose himself to their ridicule. 


Sentiments and Complexes _—_ 69 


Here is a case in point. In a certain private school 
some girls of eight had an oral composition lesson. 
The composition was written on the blackboard and 
the children were told to write it out from memory for 
homework. After the lesson the leader of a small 
group suggested that they should climb in at the 
window in the afternoon and copy the story from the 
board, as the teacher had been stupid enough not to rub 
it off. One of her followers privately thought this 
“very silly,” but she climbed in with the others rather 
than protest or exclude herself. 

If part of the environment is unfavourable, the child 
may in this way gradually develop two standards of 
conduct—one for home and one for school. If either 
the father or the mother has a strong personality, he 
will, however, continue to think that the home stand- 
ards are the “right” ones, even though experience may 
have taught him that the others are better policy. How 
far he will ultimately return to these home standards 
will depend on his later environment. In a community 
in which social functions absorb the activities of the 
majority, the student feels ashamed of his love of 
books, even though he goes on with his studies. Ina 
community in which all amusement is held to be wicked, 
the young girl feels equally ashamed of her longing 
for harmless pleasures. When home and community 
work together, the rebellious individual is almost cer- 


70 The Education of Behaviour 


tain to succumb to the pressure brought to bear upon 
him, unless indeed the person who roused his opposi- 
tion is able and willing to stand by him. * (His rebel- 
lion may, of course, be due to some book that happens 
to have come his way.) When home and community 
are at variance and about equally influential, the 
adolescent frequently adopts one standard for home 
and another for public life, for the community never 
ceases to be an important factor in the determination 
of behaviour, and it is only the exceptionally strong 
individual who dares to ignore public opinion. 


We have so far discussed the development of senti- 
ments as though they could be traced entirely to the 
child’s admiration for his parents and to the pressure 
of the environment. To complete our description we 
must now turn to the psychology of friendship and 
hero-worship. 

As is well known, hero-worship accounts for a num- 
ber of sentiments during adolescence and friendships 
play their part in this respect throughout life. On 
examination friendship will, I think, be found to be 
merely a mild form of hero-worship. There is usually 
one who leads and one who follows; in the best forms 
of friendship each is the leader in some pursuits, the 
follower in others, and each therefore respects the 
other. If we bear this in mind, we may assume that 


Sentiments and Complexes 71 


whatever is true of hero-worship applies in a lesser 
degree to friendship. There is, therefore, no need to 
discuss them separately. 

Hero-worship is, of course, particularly character- 
istic of adolescence, but it must not be supposed that 
every case one meets at school is necessarily genuine. 
The average youth feels that he is in some way at 
fault, if he cannot admire the master or mistress and 
the elder boy or girl who happen to be the fashion 
for the time being. He is therefore quite capable of 
persuading himself into a sort of sham hero-worship, 
rather than own to himself that he is lacking in this 
respect. Hero-worship that owes its origin to nothing 
deeper than this is not likely to have any lasting effect. 
But at other times the young adolescent does feel 
genuinely drawn towards some riper person. Oc- 
casionally his devotion may even become strong enough 
to absorb his whole being, so that the notice and 
approval of his hero alone make life worth living and 
his neglect causes suffering far more severe than the 
adult would as a rule think possible. In a few ab- 
normal instances such neglect is actually said to have 
been responsible for suicide, but even in the normal 
healthy case, in which the devotion is not extreme, it 
is none the less a force with which the educator has 
to reckon, for it sets free energy which is, so to speak, 
at the service of the elder. Properly directed, it may 


72 The Education of Behaviour 


be used to help the young admirers to overcome their 
faults and to develop new interests, misused, it may 
be frittered away in such trivialities as carrying books 
or bringing flowers. 

The question naturally arises, whence comes this — 
hero-worship, which in its milder forms is a normal 
stage in the development of every individual? To give 
a complete answer to this question would take us 
beyond the limits of this book. We shall therefore 
quote results and take the proofs for granted. It 
has been shown by the researches of Freud, Jung and 
others that hero-worship is an intermediate stage 
through which the adolescent has to pass in the process 
of becoming an independent individual, capable of 
founding a family of his own. In childhood his parents 
fill his horizon, he takes them as his model for every- 
thing, he desires to please them above everything. If 
one of his parents has a personality much stronger 
than his own, his development may be arrested at this 
stage; then we get the full-grown man who remains 
“tied to the apron-strings of his mother.’’ Normally, 
the individual manages to free himself from too great 
domination of his parents during the period of adol- 
escence. His first attempt in this direction is usually 
to find what seems like a partial substitute for them, 
though it is not an “attempt” in the ordinary sense of 
the word, for he has no idea what is happening to him. 


Sentiments and Complexes —=_73 


He only realises that he feels strangely drawn towards 
this or that person. 

In order to understand this phenomenon we have 
to get some insight into the possibilities of the un- 
conscious part of our minds. That part of the mind 
is unconscious, every one has probably had occasion 
to notice in regard to memory and thought. The 
easiest way to recall, say, a name one has forgotten, 
is usually to wait until it comes back of its own accord; 
that is to say, to leave it to the unconscious to find it. 
The quickest way to solve a difficult problem is often 
to put it aside for the time being and to come back to 
it later on. This is true even if we have not worked 
long enough to fatigue ourselves. All that is essential 
is that we should be thoroughly interested in our quest. 
Then the mind goes on working at it below the surface 
of consciousness while we are consciously attending 
to other things, and we therefore come to it better pre- 
pared on the second occasion. Sometimes we may even 
wake up in the middle of the night with the solution 
for a problem which has been worrying us all day. 

What is not so generally known is that impulses can 
behave like memory and reason in this respect. Modern 
analytical psychology (1.e. the work of Freud, Jung 
and others) has taught us that there may even be serious 
conflicts going on below the surface without our know- 
ing anything about them. This happens when we re- 


74 The Education of Behaviour 


press desires of which we are ashamed, instead of 
facing them squarely and fighting them in the open 
as it were. For impulses and sentiments cannot be 
killed; the choice always lies between diverting their 
energy into different channels and hiding or “repress- 
ing’ them. 

Perhaps the most difficult conflict that the human 
mind has to face is one which every individual has to 
tackle, if he is to become an independent member of 
society. This conflict begins as soon as the child is 
deprived of the undivided attention of his mother or 
nurse and has consequently too much “power to love” 
at his disposal. Under normal circumstances most of 
the energy that is set free in this way is gradually 
absorbed in childish friendships and in various other 
sentiments. Between the ages of four and seven most 
children are absolutely absorbed in discovering their 
own powers and their relation to persons and things, 
and at this stage their little efforts to try their powers 
are usually welcomed by those in authority. As a 
child grows older and stronger, Nature urges him more 
and more fiercely to go his own way and to learn from 
his own experience. On the other hand, his parents 
usually set very narrow limits on what they consider 
it safe for him to try, and his love and admiration 
for them make him feel that it is wrong to disobey 
them, The result is that he is often faced with a 


Sentiments and Complexes 75 


serious conflict of desires at the early age of nine or 
ten, and this conflict tends to grow more serious during 
the next few years, because the boy is then old enough 
to feel ashamed of it and consequently to repress such 
portions of it as come to the surface of conscious- 
ness. In the course of this process some of the energy 
or power to love which was originally centred round 
the parent, or in himself, seems to be set free and 
transferred to some one else. This substitute may or 
may not bear some resemblance to one of his parents; 
what is essential is that he should seem to have some 
quality or power which the youth is able to appreciate, 
or that he should by actual experience prove to the 
youth that he is able to show him new and desirable 
outlets for his powers. Thus boys make a hero of a 
master because he is a fine athlete, because they enjoy 
being taught by him, and so forth. In all such cases 
the master provides a safety-valve for the superfluous 
energy of his young admirers, and it therefore depends 
on him whether they use it wisely. 

(3) The Part Played by the “Self.’—In the course 
of this section we have seen: (1) that sentiments owe 
their existence to the pressure of some strong impulse 
or to that of one or more previously established centres 
of potential activity; (2) that primitive complexes 
which are formed by impulsive activity only develop 
into permanent sentiments in so far as they affect the 


76 The Education of Behaviour 


individual’s conscious love of self; and (3) that other 
sentiments can all be traced back step by step until we 
come to that same “love of self,’ or. “self-regard,” 
as it is usually called. Self-regard is, therefore, the 
primary sentiment from which all others derive their 
energy. It probably comes into being at a very early 
age, but it only affects behaviour spasmodically at first, 
for love of self obviously presupposes consciousness of 
self, and a child is usually two or three years of age 
before he is fully aware that he is a little individual 
with wants and powers of hisown. During this period, 
he is entirely self-centred in so far as he is aware of 
his “self,” for he is so busy finding out all about him- 
self that he has little energy left for anything else, and 
he is still so dependent on others that it is only natural 
that he should be led to consider himself the centre of 
his little universe. Such sentiments as he forms are 
the outcome of this view of life; he likes those who 
give him what he wants, he dislikes those who do not, 
but beyond that he is not interested in others. As his 
power over his environment increases, his idea of him- 
self changes, and he is therefore no longer satisfied 
with the things which pleased him at an earlier age. 
In other words, early likes and dislikes tend to change 
in value or disappear as one grows older. In so far 
as energy is set free in this process, it may either be 
transferred to other persons or things, or it may be 


Sentiments and Complexes 77 


re-absorbed by the self. Thus the child who has lost 
his interest in stamp-collecting may either find a new 
outlet for his energy in some other occupation, or he 
may merely spend so much more time in day-dream- 
ing. What he does in a particular case, and whether 
the new occupation is or is not desirable, will depend 
partly on himself but to a much greater extent on his 
environment, for the approval of those whom he re- 
spects ministers to his self-regard and public opinion 
is a force he dare not ignore. Thus it is the com- 
munity which is at fault, if the growing boy or girl 
fails to form sentiments of social value. If the en- 
vironment fosters a social ideal of the “‘self,’ the 
youth will try to be unselfish; if it fosters an ideal of 
self-seeking, he will as readily grow selfish. 


C. The Effect of Sentiments on the Formation of 
Habits and Judgments 


Once a sentiment has become established it tends to 
stimulate the growth of habits, for it necessarily finds 
expression in one or more fixed desires, and our efforts 
to satisfy these desires will often cause us to acquire 
new forms of activity. This point will be discussed 
more fully in the chapter on the Growth and Control 
of Habits (see Chapter VI). 

Sentiments also affect our interpretation and judg- 


78 The Education of Behaviour 


ment of the acts of others. If we like a person we 
tend to judge his behaviour too leniently, if we dislike 
him we tend to judge it too severely. Possibly we 
must have caught ourselves in the act to realise to what 
an extent we are capable of such an injustice, but oc- 
casionally we have the opportunity of observing some- 
thing of which we normally disapprove first in a person 
whom we like and then, within a few hours or days, 
in another whom we dislike. In such a case we find 
ourselves (often to our own surprise) declaring it to 
be a charming weakness in the first case, a further 
proof of utter worthlessness in the second. And we 
are really but little better off when we are aware of 
this danger, for then our very desire to be just will 
probably make us judge those we like too severely and 
those we dislike too leniently. It is therefore impos- 
sible to be quite fair in one’s judgment of any person 
whom one either likes or dislikes. Moreover, since 
one cannot judge a person at all without knowing 
something about him, and cannot know anything about 
him without conceiving, however slight, a like or dis- 
like for him, it follows that it is impossible to judge 
any one quite fairly. 

Mr. Shand summarises the effect of sentiment on 
behaviour as follows: “Every sentiment tends to in- 
clude in its system all the emotions, thoughts, voli- 
tional processes and qualities of character which are 


Sentiments and Complexes 79 


of advantage to it for the attainment of its ends, and 
to reject all such constituents as are either superfluous 
or antagonistic.” (Foundations of Character, p. 106). 


D. Mind-Tunnelling by the Method of Frea 
Associations 


(1) Description of the Method.—It will have been 
observed that the work of this chapter has been largely 
based on results obtained by students of modern ana- 
lytical psychology. This is a branch of psychology 
that is likely to become increasingly important to 
teachers and students of education, for it often enables 
us to explain behaviour which would seem capricious 
or meaningless without its aid, and to recognise symp- 
toms in their early stages before the underlying causes 
have led to the formation of bad habits or of a wrong 
attitude towards life. 

The methods which the “analyst” employs are based 
on what is technically known as the Law of Associa- 
tion by Contiguity. This is stated by Bain as fol- 
lows :— 

“Actions, Sensations and States of Feeling, occur- 
ring together or in close succession, tend to grow to- 
gether or cohere in such a way that when any one of 
them is afterwards present in the mind, the others are 
apt to be brought up in ‘idea. 


3°42 


Let us suppose, for 


80 The Education of Behaviour 


instance, that I learn to appreciate the perseverance 
of a certain person in connection with a definite piece 
of work. Then the chances are that my thoughts will 
drift to that person when I think of that piece of work, 
or when I think of the value of perseverance. Similarly 
the thought of that person is likely to lead me to dwell 
on the value of perseverance or on the piece of work 
in question. What happens on a particular occasion 
will, of course, depend on my interests at the moment. 
Thus the Law of Association by Contiguity is merely 
the Law of Habit applied to the sphere of thought. 
If any idea ‘‘A’’ becomes associated with another “B,” 
then there is henceforth a tendency for each to suggest 
the other. The strength of this tendency will depend 
partly on the amount of interest attached to the as- 
sociation “AB,” and partly on the number of times 
“A” and “B” have occurred together. The burnt child, 
if seriously burnt, dreads the fire after one experience, 
for the association between fire (A) and pain (B) 
is of enough interest to the child to be remembered 
for good. But the fact that 4 x 5=20 will usually 
need several repetitions before it is remembered, for 
there is, as a rule, but very moderate interest attached 
to the process of counting four rows of five beans. 
Association between ideas differ from habits of 
action in one important aspect. Actions only become 
connected in the order in which they are practised, | 


Sentiments and Complexes 81 


but if the number of ideas have become connected 
together, then any one of them has the power of 
bringing back any of the others. In other words, as- 
sociations of movements only work forwards, whereas 
associations of ideas work backwards and forwards. 
Thus even counting backwards is difficult without prac- 
tice, but other things being equal, it is no more difficult 
to work back from bed-time than to work forward 
from tea-time, if one wants to recall what one was 
doing at seven o’clock on a certain day. 

It is this fact that has been turned to account in 
analytical psychology. The whole of its complex 
technique is based on what is termed the Method of 
Free Associations. Fundamentally this consists in 
letting the mind wander freely from subject to sub- 
ject, without attempting to control the flow of thought 
in any way. If this is done, things long ago “for- 
gotten” or momentarily repressed come to the surface 
of consciousness and enable us to explain acts that 
seemed purposeless or fancies that are quite contrary 
to the main trend of our character. 

An example will make this point clearer. When I 
was trying to choose a suitable illustration in the last 
paragraph, I thought first of a “certain type of 
ability,” then of “‘skill,” but neither satisfied me, though 
it obviously did: not matter much what word I used. 
Then “perseverance” came, and immediately I felt it 


82 The Education of Behaviour 


to be the “right word.” I stopped to wonder why. I 
had just before been writing up my notes on a certain 
feeble-minded girl, and had come across the entry: | 
“Not lacking in perseverance, spent five minutes trying 
to thread a needle with cotton too coarse for it. I 
finally persuaded her to give it up.” This came back 
to my mind now and seemed sufficient explanation for 
the moment, though there was no reason why that 
entry should have caught my eye rather than several 
others. It was not till I wrote the words “Method of 
Free Associations” that I understood that part of the 
problem. ‘Perseverance’ immediately flashed across 
my mind again, this time as being essential in the ap- 
plication of this method. That explained why I had 
noticed that particular entry. I was intending to write 
this section as soon as I had written up my notes. I 
have often of late had cause to realise that much per- 
severance is needed in order to succeed with this 
method, and though I was not consciously thinking 
of that aspect of it at the time, it had evidently been 
stirred to activity below the surface of consciousness. 
That is why that entry caught my eye, and that is why 
“perseverance” seemed the “right word” for my illus- 
tration. If the reader will try similar experiments, 
he will often find explanations for acts which are at 
first sight quite as purposeless as the one I have just 
described. 


Sentiments and Complexes _— 83 


(2) Repressed Complexes and their Effect on Be- 
haviour.—If we repress, 1.e. refuse to think about an 
experience we have had, it is either because it was ex- 
ceptionally painful or because it has in some way hurt 
our self-respect. In little children the knowledge of 
conventions is so slight that the feeling of shame can- 
not as yet act as a restraint to any large extent, but fear 
of disapproval and self-assertion very effectively take 
its place. The child will not talk about things he has 
seen, heard or done, if he has reason to expect that 
such an account is likely to have unpleasant results. 
Neither will he ask questions about anything he wants 
to know if he thinks he will not be told the truth. 
Since it is, moreover, almost impossible for little peo- 
ple to think about a thing without talking about it, the 
determination to keep silent about any experience of 
theirs is almost certain to lead to repression of the 
same. 

As was pointed out earlier in this chapter, a vivid 
emotional experience is often the source of a lasting 
sentiment. If an experience of this kind is repressed, 
the sentiment is not thereby broken up, for the impulses 
remain centred round the idea. The desires to which 
they give rise are, however, prevented from coming to 
consciousness in their normal form, for they would 
only be repressed if they did. Yet, since the “complex” 
(as the sentiment is usually called when repressed) is 


84 The Education of Behaviour 


still active, the vital energy set free by it must find an 
outlet somehow. At times it manages to slip out un- 
disguised when we are not on the watch. Thus a lady 
who considers it her duty to keep on good terms with 
old family friends, but who, none the less, heartily dis- 
likes one of them, once said to the latter in my hearing, 
“T am so glad you have to go so soon.”’ She was evi- 
dently quite unaware of the slip she had made for she 
did not correct herself or seem self-conscious in any 
way. 

More often these repressed complexes find an outlet 
in a disguised form. Thus Jung gives us an account of 
a child of four (called Anna in the text) who developed 
an abnormal interest in geography as the result of a re- 
pression. When her baby brother was born, Anna 
wanted to know about the origin of children. Her 
father told her that the stork brings them, but this she 
found out to be untrue. She therefore lost faith in 
her parents at the very moment when she was faced 
with a problem which was of intense interest to her and 
which they alone could solve for her. This happened 
just before the earthquake of Messina. Anna heard 
the latter discussed at table. She got very excited and 
asked endless questions about it. Her desire for know- 
ledge was such that she spent hours poring over maps 
and pictures of volcanoes. She also “began to cry out 
frequently at night that the earthquake was coming and 


Sentiments and Complexes 85 


that she heard the thunder” (Analytical Psychology, 
Jung, translated by Constance Long, edition 1916, p. 
141). Presently her father took an opportunity to tell 
her something about the origin of children in a way 
that convinced her that he was speaking the truth. 
Then her fear of earthquakes disappeared as suddenly 
as it had come into existence. Her very interest in 
them was lost! “In order to test this new state of 
affairs the father showed her pictures illustrating vol- 
canoes and earthquake devastations. Anna remained 
unaffected ; she examined the pictures with indifference, 
remarking, ‘These people are dead; I have already seen 
that quite often.’ The pictures of a volcanic eruption 
no longer had any attraction for her. Thus all her 
scientific interest collapsed and vanished as suddenly 
as it came’ (op. cit., p. 144). Here we have, there- 
fore, interest in the origin of children repressed, and 
the energy set free by it diverted to interest in earth- 
quakes and volcanoes. But such “ sublimation,” as it 
is called technically, is abnormal at the age of four. As 
Jung points out, it would, if encouraged, involve pre- 
mature mental strain, for which the child would very 
likely have to suffer later on. 

It must never be forgotten that the first person whom 
a child really loves is his little self. Other people only 
enter into his scheme of things in so far as they affect 
his comfort: he loves them when they please him, 


86 The Education of Behaviour 


he hates them when they hurt him. Moreover, until 
he has learnt from his environment that he is 
expected to be consistent in his behaviour, he is cap- 
able of loving a person dearly at one moment and 
hating him with equal intensity the next. At the 
same time self-preservation combined with utter de- 
pendence on others make him anxious to win the 
approval of those around him. If it is wicked to 
hate father or mother, he tries to forget that he has 
even been guilty of such an act; if one should not 
want to know or to have certain things, he is horrified 
to find such desires within himself. Thus the ordinary 
conventional environment is responsible for numbers 
of premature or unnecessary repressions, and each 
such repression means a complex which may work 
untold mischief at a later stage. Birth, marriage, and 
all that is involved therein are the most common 
sources, probably because the average adult has himself 
so many complexes round them that he is incapable of 
answering the questions of young children as frankly as 
they are put, and often conveys the impression that 
offences against adult conventions are due to something 
evil within the child, whereas they are usually caused 
by nothing more alarming than ignorance. 

There is every reason to believe that sex instruction 
should be given as soon as the child asks for it, that is, 
at about the age of four or five (cf. p. 84). If he can 


Sentiments and Complexes 87 


only get contradictory and unlikely stories from his 
own people, the child of eight or nine turns to older 
children or to any one who is willing to help him. 
Sooner or later reproduction tends to become a problem 
of overwhelming importance and definite nervous 
symptoms may appear, if the information is not forth- 
coming or is obtained in an undesirable form. It 
seems worth while to give two instances from the 
writer's own experience: A girl of twelve and a half | 
was so restless in school that she was always in trouble, . 
another of not yet eleven suffered from recurrent night- 
mares. Both were cured by sexual instruction com- 
bined with a short course of psycho-analysis. 

The paths by which a repressed complex finds an 
outlet are many and various. Thumb-sucking, if con- 
tinued after infancy, is often due to a repressed desire 
for more affection. Queer fancies and objectless fears 
can usually be traced to some experience long ago for- 
gotten by the victim. And always the method of dis- 
covering the cause of a symptom is fundamentally 
that of free associations, working at times from a 
person’s waking thoughts, and more frequently from 
his dreams. 

As in the case of sentiments, these methods of 
relieving pressure are repeated if not checked; but since 
the resulting habits originate in desires which the in- 
dividual is hiding from himself, it is often difficult 


88 The Education of Behaviour 


to discover their source, and the person himself is 
usually under the impression that he has drifted into 
them involuntarily. 

In this connection it is worth while to point out 
that the reasons which the individual gives for his 
behaviour are not worth much, since the act is a 
safety-valve for a complex which its owner has “for- 
gotten,’ the reason of which he is aware must have 
been invented after the event to justify it. To ask 
a child, “Why do you steal?” “Why do you lose 
your temper?” is to invite lies. The only true answer 
would be, “I don’t know; something in me makes 
me do it.” But, if he thinks he ought to have a 
reason, he will find one, and since such a reason 
will make the outlet safer for the unconscious complex, 
he will probably feel convinced that he has found the 
true one. 

(3) The Value of Mind-Tunnelling in Connection 
with Repressed Complexes.—In conclusion, I will quote 
a case of Dr. Rivers (See The Lancet, August 18, 
1917). A certain officer in the R.A.M.C. had a great 
dislike for closed spaces. He had suffered from 
this since his boyhood. To be shut up in a closed 
space frightened him, though he could give no reason 
for his fear, and he found the strain of living in dug- 
outs and trenches so intolerable that he broke down 
under it, Working with the method of free associa- 


Sentiments and Complexes 89 


tions, Dr. Rivers caused him to recall the following 
scene from his childhood. As a little boy of three or 
four, he had taken something to a ragman in order 
to sell it. The ragman lived at the end of a long dark 
passage. When the child came back, he could not open 
the door at the end of the passage, at the same time 
a dog began to growl in the darkness; it is no wonder 
that he was terrified. This adventure he had first re- 
pressed and afterwards forgotten. But it had gone 
on living below the surface, causing a general fear of 
closed spaces, which he found impossible to conquer, 
though he must have realised its futility. An interest- 
ing point in cases of this kind is that the symptom, 
e. g. the objectless fear, disappears when the uncon- 
scious complex has been brought back to consciousness 
and has thus been broken up. 

The greater the resistance, the greater is the perse- 
verance that is needed to recall an event that has been 
“forgotten” through repression. Yet recalled it must 
be, if we wish to cure individuals of such things as 
objectless fears, or if we wish to solve such problems 
as the functions of hero-worship in the development 
of the adolescent. Roughly speaking, the method em- 
ployed in cases of difficulty is to attack the “forgotten” 
event from as many different points as possible, until 
it is at last stimulated so strongly that it is recalled 
in spite of the resistance. 


90 The Education of Behaviour 


E. Gregariousness 


(1) The Psychology. of Gregariousness—In the 
course of this chapter we have had occasion to refer 
to the desire for companionship and the force of public 
opinion. Phenomena of this nature are usually classed 
together as products of our natural “gregariousness,” 
or desire to live with others of our own kind. We 
have now to try to account for this desire and to study 
some of its effects on behaviour. 

Gregariousness in its simplest form merely drives 
us to seek company of some kind. It causes us to 
take pleasure in being one of a crowd and makes us 
afraid of being out of reach of other human beings. 
It is often described as a special instinct (cf. Trotter, 
Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, and Mc- 
Dougall, op. cit., p. 84), but it may well be the outward 
expression of the fear of being alone. 

This fear every child acquires during the first years 
of life for he is then so helpless that it is not safe to 
let him stray far afield. It probably manages to sur- 
vive when he begins to be able to look after himself, 
because it ensures the attention of others, which is 
exactly what his egotistic little soul desires above all 
else. If he is taught to feel ashamed of it as he grows 
older, he will probably repress it into a complex, other- 
wise it may remain a sentiment all his life. In the 


Sentiments and Complexes _ gt 


latter case he will remain aware of his fear of solitude 
and will, therefore, not have to invent other more 
dignified reasons for his desire for companionship. 
Whether present as complex or sentiment, his fear will, 
however, have the effect of making him seek the society 
of others. As we have already seen, it is, moreover, 
soon reinforced by the desire for friendships (cf. p. 
74). 

These forces together must gradually accustom the 
child to the continual companionship of others of his 
own kind, and the companionship in turn must cause 
him to form interests and other sentiments, the satisfac- 
tion of which depends on continual intercourse with 
others. It is, therefore, not difficult to see why the 
adult usually finds it extraordinarily difficult to live a 
life of solitude. To accustom himself to such a change 
he has to find new outlets for a large number of senti- 
ments and complexes, some of which (such as the 
fear of being alone) date back to the earliest years of 
his life and have therefore had time to form all kinds 
of derivatives in their service. 

At the age of seven or eight an interesting stage is 
reached in the development of gregariousness, for that 
is the age at which children usually begin to form 
gangs and clubs of their own accord. At first these 
organisations are, of course, very unstable; not only 
the leader, but even the members, often change from 


92 The Education of Behaviour 


day to day. Children of this age will often tell us: 
“T am not friends with So-and-so to-day.” All the 
same the gang or club is a living entity to its members 
and it is felt to be a serious matter to be expelled from 
it. The verdict: ““We do not want you to play with 
us, you always spoil the game,” has made many a 
strong-willed child make his first real effort to gain 
self-control. It should be noticed that the fear of 
being alone inculcates the same lesson, even if the 
issue is not complicated by the desire for friendship, 
for a community always has it in its power to ostracise 
its most obnoxious members. Further, the need for 
company may come into conflict with the desire for 
the friendship of a particular individual, for a person 
may find that one of his friends has incurred the anger 
of the community and he may then have to choose 
between comparative isolation and the loss of a 
friend. 

(2) The Relation of Gregariousness to Love of 
Approval, Suggestion and Imitation—It will be 
obvious that conflicts between the need for friends, 
the fear of loneliness, and the love of power, must 
lead to endless problems of behaviour. The more im- 
portant of these the reader will find discussed in the 
chapters on Character. Before leaving the subject, it 
will, however, be convenient to prepare the ground by 
describing three phenomena which are closely connected 


Sentiments and Complexes 93 


with their solution. These are love of approval, sug- 
gestion and imitation. 

Love of Approval.—Love of approval may be due 
to nothing more than a desire for concrete gain of some 
kind. Thus a child will try to gain the approval of the 
teacher, who has it in his power to grant or withhold 
some privilege. This is, however, only a partial ex- 
planation of the phenomenon, for we often experience 
a desire for approval when there cannot be any ques- 
tion of gaining something concrete. Another obvious 
explanation is that the desire is due to self-assertion, 
but that again is not satisfactory as it stands, for it 
does not show why we need the approval of others 
even when we know that we have done a good piece 
of work. The love of approval, which is not merely 
the reverse of fear of pain, seems rather to be the 
result of the interaction of self-assertion with some 
other innate tendency. In the case of the young child 
this tendency is, no doubt, what we usually call his 
“love” for parent or nurse. It has often been observed 
that a child, who is deprived of the petting and fondling 
which the average child gets as a matter of course, 
misses something which the best education is not able 
to replace. Displeasure on the part of the parents 
necessarily means deprivation of these expressions of 
love and the child’s need for them must, therefore, act 
as a strong incentive in the right direction. Presently 


94 The Education of Behaviour 


this is reinforced by self-assertion, for he wants to 
prove to himself that he is growing in strength and 
skill, and he has become sufficiently aware of his own 
ignorance to feel that he can only judge his progress 
by the impression which his achievements make on 
others. By the time the child is old enough to form 
friendships, the desire for actual fondling and petting 
has developed into a desire for sympathy and comrade- 
ship, but the origin of his desire for the good opinion 
of his friend seems to be similar to that of the earlier 
forms. On the other hand, attempts to gain the ap- 
proval of a superior whom the individual does not 
like, or of the community as a whole, seem rather to 
be based on fear and self-assertion. The hold which 
a community has over the average individual (or, in 
other words, the extent to which the individual fears 
ostracism), is seen by the readiness with which he 
usually bows to the verdict of the majority. In fact, 
fear of public opinion is, as a rule, stronger than fear 
of a superior; if there is conflict between the two, the 
average boy of ten or eleven will incur the wrath of his 
master rather than that of his fellows. 

To sum up, the inborn tendencies of every normal 
person make him want to win the approval of the in- 
dividuals who are either his friends or his superiors 
and of the groups and associations of which he forms 
a part. In any particular case this desire may be due 


Sentiments and Complexes 95 


to love for a particular individual, fear of one kind 
or another, or, more usually, the interaction of either 
or both of these with self-assertion. Finally, when 
the choice lies between the approval of an individual 
and that of a group, the latter is likely to prove the 
greater incentive, unless the former is reinforced by a 
strong feeling of friendship. As the reader will gather 
from my analysis of love of approval, I feel inclined to 
think that the interaction of gregariousness and self- 
assertion is sufficient to account for this form of be- 
haviour, and that it is consequently unnecessary to 
postulate the existence of a special impulse. 
Suggestion.—Roughly speaking, we divide the peo- 
ple with whom we come into contact into superiors, 
equals and inferiors. This does not imply that we 
necessarily consider a person our inferior or our 
superior in all respects; frequently we feel him to be 
our inferior in some things, our equal or superior in 
others. In so far as we consider another our inferior, 
he has no influence over us, for we consider ourselves 
better qualified than he.2 But if we have reason to 
*Dr. McDougall assumes the existence of an impulse of self- 
subjection which “expresses itself in a slinking, crestfallen be- 
haviour, a general diminution of muscular tone, slow, restricted 
movements, a hanging down of the head and sidelong glances” 
Cntroduction to Social Psychology, Edition 1910, pp. 64-65). 
*It should be noticed that the unsupported opinion of an equal, 


or even of an inferior, may be accepted uncritically when it 
flatters our self-esteem. This is due to our tendency to “forget” 


96 The Education of Behaviour 


believe that he is our superior in something in which 
we would like to perfect ourselves, he is for us the 
leader of a group to which we would like to belong, and 
if our respect for him is great enough, we are prepared 
to follow him blindly and do not even experience the 
desire to find a reason for his commands. In other 
words, we are prepared to accept his statements zwith- 
out logically adequate proof. 

It is usual to refer to statements accepted in this way 
as “suggestions,” and to describe the persons who are 
willing to act on them as “suggestible.”’ We may, 
therefore, say that we take suggestions from our 
superiors, but not from our inferiors. There remains 
our attitude towards equals. This is different from 
either of the others, for it depends on the number of 
persons who make the assertion. If an equal has no 
one to support him, we expect him to give us a reason 
for his opinion, but if four or five all assert the same 
thing, we begin to waver and if the group is large 
enough, we usually accept its point of view as un- 
critically as that of the leader, for we then feel that 
we are dealing with an opinion of our group, and this 
we want to accept to prove ourselves members of the 
group. We may, therefore, conclude that we accept 
suggestions from a single individual if we look upon 


whatever is contrary to the dominating interest of the moment. 
(Cf. quotation from Mr. Shand, p. 78.) 


Sentiments and Complexes 97 


him as the leader of a group to which we either belong 
or would like to belong, and that we accept suggestions 
from a number of individuals, if we think that they 
are members of such a group. It is usual to call the 
former “prestige suggestion,’ the latter “mass sug- 
gestion.’ There are evidently a number of educa- 
tional problems to discuss in connection with “sug- 
gestion,” but it will be convenient to leave these until 
we are dealing with the training of the character (see 
Chapter IX). 

Imitation.—l{ we wish to decide whether a certain 


6é DB 


person belongs to our “set,” we try to find out how 
he behaves, what opinions he holds and possibly how 
he earns his living. Then, if he turns out to be like 
us in what we consider essentials, we are prepared to 
accept him as “one of us.” If not, we may consider 
him as our superior or as our inferior, but we do not 
admit him to our “group” on terms of equality. Hence 
the person who for any reason wishes to belong to a 
particular group is forced to imitate the characteristic 
actions of that group and even to adopt its opinions 
and prejudices. Imitation of this kind can be called 
“conscious” imitation. It is evidently the result of the 
interaction of gregariousness and self-assertion, for 
gregariousness impels us to join a group of some kind 
and the sacrifice of independence which this necessarily 


entails would injure our self-esteem, if we did not 


98 The Education of Behaviour 


imagine that the members of the group we select are 
as good as, or better than, ourselves. Conscious imi- 
tation is, however, not necessarily intelligent. A boy 
of four “wrote” something that looked at a distance 
like a letter, but when asked what he had been writing 
about he looked blank; he had wanted to do what the 
older children were doing, but he had not yet realised 
the purpose of letters. It is worth while to notice in 
this connection that the child imitates wholes rather 
than parts. The reason for this is simple: the wholes 
have meaning for him, the parts have none, hence he 
is interested in the wholes and not in the parts, and 
there can be no desire to imitate where there is no 
interest. We should therefore teach in wholes or, if 
the final whole is too complex, break it up into simpler 
wholes, each of which has a meaning for the child. 
Thus it is permissible to break up a word into sounds 
when a child has discovered their existence, but it is 
never permissible to break up a letter into “‘pot-hooks,”’ 
because these are necessarily meaningless. 


Besides “conscious” imitation, there is another form, 
which is known as “unconscious” imitation. As the 
name suggests, this is a tendency to imitate others 
which is not due to any conscious desire on our part. 
It also differs from the other form in that it may 
make us imitate the actions of people who do not 


Sentiments and Complexes 99 


belong to any of the groups which we have chosen 
consciously. At times it may even be responsible for 
mannerisms and expressions which we consider ugly 
or incorrect. On the other hand, unconscious imita- 
tion does not, as a rule, impel us to copy the movements 
of animals and mechanisms. 

The reader will be prepared to find that uncon- 
scious imitation is due to the activity of unconscious 
complexes. Probably the fear of being alone is in- 
volved in every such act. The particular path by which 
the energy escapes must, however, be influenced by 
other sentiments or complexes. It will be more con- 
venient to discuss this point fully in connection with 
the origin of habits which have been acquired uncon- 
sciously (see pp. 120-122). The social value of 
unconscious imitation is too obvious to be in need of 
elaboration. It helps us to “rub off corners,” and thus 
makes it easier for us to live with each other. It enables 
the child to pick up the speech and manners of his 
environment without conscious effort on his part. 

There is, however, another side to the question, for 
the very ease with which we become like each other 
may in itself become an obstacle to progress, if not 
held in check by a contrary tendency. During child- 
hood and youth self-regard usually provides this neces- 
sary check, but as persons grow older they often 
prefer to stay in the group in which they happen to find 


100 The Education of Behaviour 


themselves, and it evidently depends on the constitution 
and leadership of that group whether this is or is not 
desirable. However, so long as an individual is grow- 
ing mentally, he remains eager to choose his com- 
panions from the “best’’ group available and to acquire 
by conscious imitation much that he would never have 
obtained without such efforts. 


CHAPTER V 


NOTES ON THE FUNCTION OF THE NERVOUS 
SYSTEM 


A. The Neurone or Nerve-Cell. 

B. The Physiology of a Simple Reflex Act. 
C. The Central Nervous System. 

D. The Physiology of Impulse. 


E. Summary. 


WE shall find as we proceed that the student of 
psychology must know a little physiology in order to 
appreciate some of the problems with which he is con- 
fronted. This chapter will therefore consist of a few 
notes on the physiology of the nervous system, which 
the reader will find convenient for reference. 


A. The Neurone or Nerve-Cell 


The nervous system may be described shortly as an 
exceedingly complex network of nerve-cells and their 
branches, or neurones as they are usually called. The 


I0I 


1o2 The Education of Behaviour 


cell of the neurone is microscopic in size; some idea of 
its minuteness will be obtained from the fact that there 
are said to be about 3,000,000,000 nerve-cells in the 
brain and spinal cord. Fig. 1 gives the structure of 
the branches of a typical neurone. It will be noticed 
that most of the processes of the nerve-cell break off 
almost immediately into smaller branches ending in 
arborescences of fine twigs; these are called dendrons. 
The one long process which is 

shown in the diagram is called the 

axis cylinder or axon; it varies 

eames greatly in length in different neu- 
rones, but always ends in an arbo- 

risation similar to that of the 

dendrons. The axon has a few fine 

cued side branches” near) the cell on ane 

neurone, which are called collaterals. 

oy Microscopic examination shows that 

the dendrons and collaterals of 


Fic. 1.—Pyramidal ; ; j ’ 
cell from cerebrum. neighbouring neurones intermingle 


From Halliburton’ . Sead 
Be Tiook of Pieces and interlace, but it is not known at 


7089.) present whether each neurone is an 
anatomically independent unit, or whether there is a 
continuous path from cell to cell. The important facts 
for the psychologist are that there is functional con- 
tinuity between neurones and that each is so closely 


associated with several others that no part of the 


The Nervous System 103 


nervous system can be considered apart from the rest 
(cf. Lickley, The Nervous System, p. 12). 


B. The Physiology of a Simple Reflex Act 


Fig. 2 is a diagram of the path of nervous energy 
in a reflex act—such as the withdrawal of the hand 
after touching something that is unpleasantly hot. 
“S” is a sensory neurone, the axon of which passes 
from the cell in the spinal cord to some point on the 
surface of the hand. ‘“M” is the motor neurone, the 


Fic. 2.—Reflex Action. (From Halliburton.) 


axon of which passes from its cell in the spinal cord to 
one of the muscle fibres which control the movement 
of the hand, and “I” is what may be called an inter- 
mediary neurone. When the excessive heat stimulates 
the sensory neurone S, nervous energy is set free. This 
travels up the sensory neurone to the intermediate 
neurone I, thence to the motor neurone M and thus 
down to the muscle fibre, which it causes to contract. 


104 The Education of Behaviour 


if 
In the diagram only one neurone of each kind has 


been shown, but in practice many more are involved, 


Fic, 3.—Diagram of 

the neurones of the 

motor path. (From 
Halliburton.) 


for any movement of the hand de- 
pends on contractions in a large 
number of muscle fibres and a 
stimulus like heat usually affects 
more than one sensory neurone. 
Further, we do not normally burn 
ourselves without being aware of it, 
and we do not become aware of 
stimuli unless some of the nervous 
energy which they set free succeeds 
in reaching certain neurones in the 
brain. Thus Fig. 2 only represents 
the path of part of the energy that 
was set free; the rest must have 
passed by way of other intermediary 
neurones to those which make it 
possible for us to become conscious 
of heat and pain. This part of the 
path has been omitted in the diagram 
for the sake of simplicity, but it can 
easily be imagined from Fig. 3, 
which shows how we move an arm 
voluntarily. In this case the nervous 


energy is set free centrally in response to a thought 


or wish; it then travels to the intermediary neurones, 


The Nervous System 105 


and from these to the necessary motor neurones. 
Generally speaking, nervous energy can pass from one 
part of the nervous system to another by means of 
these intermediary neurones, and the number that 1s 
involved in a particular case depends on the complexity 
of the mental process involved. 


C. The Central Nervous System 


We shall next consider the structures of the nervous 
system as a whole. It consists structurally of two 
parts, the central system, which controls both voluntary 
and involuntary acts, and the much smaller automatic 
system, which is concerned only with pure reflexes, 
such as the activity of the glands and the contraction of 
the pupil of the eye in bright sunlight. The cells of 
the central system are situated in the brain and the 
spinal cord, those of the autonomic system are arranged 
in groups which lie along both sides of the vertebral 
column and near certain nerves of the brain; the two 
systems are connected by strands of fibres which pass 
at intervals between them. 

In both systems the cells which carry out a common 
purpose are grouped together into “nerve centres.” 

The central nervous system consists structurally of 
six parts: (1) the spinal cord; (2) the bulb or medulla 
oblongata; (3) the cerebellum or the smaller brain; 
(4) the pons or bridge which connects the smaller 


106 The Education of Behaviour 


brain with the rest of the nervous system; (5) the 
mid brain; and (6) the cerebrum or greater brain 


(see Fig. 4). 


Fic. 4.—Plan in outline of brain as seen from the right side. A, 
cerebrum; B, cerebellum; C, pons; D, medulla oblongata. After 
Quain’s Anatomy (Sir E. Sharpey Schafer). Longmans, Green & Co. 


It would take us far beyond the scope of this book 
to describe the functions of these different parts in 
any detail, but we may summarise them as follows :— 

(1) The cells of the spinal cord control the reflex 
movements of the limbs and the trunk. 

(2) Those of the bulb, the pons and the mid-brain 
regulate breathing, heart-beating and other reflexes 
which are essential for our well-being. 

(3) Those of the cerebellum are concerned with the 


The Nervous System 107 


co-ordination of muscular movements, and more par- 
ticularly with the harmonious adjustment of the work- 
ing of the muscles which maintain the body in a 
position of equilibrium. 

(4) Those of the cerebrum make volition, percep- 
tion, thought and feeling possible. 


1 =area for leg. 2=area for body. 3 =area for arm. 
4 =area for neck. 5 =area for tongue. 6 =area for mouth. 


Fic. 5.—Left cerebral hemisphere: outer surface. 


In other words, the cerebrum is the organ which 
enables us to formulate ends and to achieve them, 
whereas the rest of the nervous system is concerned 
with reflex activity, that is to say, with activity over 
which we have little or no direct control (see Chapter 
TI). 

There will be no need for us to study the structure 
of the spinal cord and lower brain any further, but it 
will be convenient to know a little more about the 


cerebrum. 


108 The Education of Behaviour 


Fig. 5 gives a rough idea of how the nerve-centres 
are distributed on its outer surface. The centres of the 
motor area enable us to move our muscles at will (cf. 
Fig. 3); the words “arm,” “leg,” etc., show the situa- 
tion of the centres for the different parts of the body. 
The other areas that are marked in the diagram 
enable us to become aware of stimuli of sound, light, 
etc. The area marked “Tactile and Muscular Senses” 
is, perhaps, in need of a word of explanation; it is 
concerned both with ordinary stimuli of touch and with 
those which enable us to tell the position of a limb 
without looking at it; if the centres of this area are not 
in working order the patient becomes unable to tell the 
position of his limbs without looking at them. There 
remain the areas which are left blank in the diagram. 
These are usually called the “association areas,’’ because 
they are said to contain the neurones which act as inter- 
mediaries between the centres of the sensory and motor 
areas, and thus enable us to associate together impres- 
sions from different senses and sensations with move- 
ments. Thus the light and sound of a fire set free 
energy in the visual and auditory areas of the cerebrum 
in the way explained above, but this energy then passes 
to some common centre in the association area, and it 
is the fact that this third centre is being stimulated 
simultaneously by two different sense centres, which 
somehow enables us to realise that the light and sound 


The Nervous System 109 


are coming from the same source, the fire. Similarly, 
if a number of association centres are stimulated one 
after the other, further intermediary neurones seem 
to enable us to realise in what order we are experiencing 
the corresponding impressions. 

The possibilities of mental activity which we owe to 
the association areas are further increased by the 
tendency of the neurones of the cerebrum to store im- 
pressions for future use. The physiological explana- 
tion suggested for this phenomenon is that nervous 
energy encounters resistance the first time it passes 
from one neurone to another, and that this resistance 
decreases every time the same path is taken. Psycho- 
logically this means that acts and lines of thought 
become easier on repetition. We are, moreover, able 
to reproduce many experiences at will, and can thus 
repeat them until the resistance has become negligible. 
In other words, habit, recognition and memory all 
depend ultimately on this tendency of nerve-centres 
to be permanently affected by suitable stimuli. It could 
be shown that perception, imagination and reasoning in 
turn depend on the power of forming associations com- 
bined with that of recalling the past, and we have 
already seen that voluntary movement can be initiated 
in the motor areas. Hence the cerebrum enables us: 
(1) to conceive ends; (2) to adapt our behaviour to 
these ends; and (3) to make useful forms of behaviour 


110 The Education of Behaviour 


habitual. Or, to put the same thing more shortly, the 
cerebrum is the organ which enables us to use our 
impulses to the best advantage. 

So far, we are on safe ground, but if we now ask 
what is the exact connection between physiological 
changes in the nervous system and the mental processes 
which are in some way dependent on them, science has 
as yet no answer to give us. We know that the 
functioning of the mind is in some way dependent on 
that of the brain, but we are at present absolutely 
ignorant of the way in which this interdependence is 
established. 


D. The Physiology of Impulse 


As regards the physiology of impulse as such, there 
is as yet even less information at our disposal. It 
seems probable that a group of neurones at the base of 
the cerebrum (called the thalamus) is responsible for 
the distribution of impulsive activity, and that the 
thalamic centre itself is especially concerned with the 
production of emotion, while the cortex exercises dis- 
criminative and inhibitory functions. That is all 
Physiology can teach us at present about the initiation 
of impulsive activity. | 

In the case of most impulses we know just a little 
about the mechanism which controls the rest of the 
process. Such information as we have is, in the main, 


The Nervous System III 


concerned with the impulse to avoid danger and the 
impulse to fight. Observation teaches us that both 
these impulses produce certain reflex changes within us 
which prepare us for activity; thus the person who is 
growing angry often stiffens his muscles and clenches 
his fists without being aware of it, and the person who 
is frightened starts up, even if he does not run away. 
Hence some of the energy which is set free by the 
percept must be diverted reflexly to the motor centres 
of the spinal cord, which will be thrown into activity 
if we give way to the corresponding impulse. 

It has been shown of late that the reflex centres of 
the nervous system also prepare us for emergencies in 
another way. Situated just above the kidneys there 
are two small glands which secrete a substance called 
adrenaline. In anger and fear these glands are stimu- 
lated automatically, with the result that they secrete 
more than the normal amount of adrenaline. The way 
this reacts on the body is too complex to be described in 
this connection. The reader who knows no physiology 
will therefore have to take it for granted that the extra 
adrenaline increases the power of resistance of heart 
and muscle and thus renders both attack and defence 
more effective. Thus the impulse to fight and the 
impulse to avoid danger are connected innately with 
reflexes which are of the greatest value to us when 
our safety is being threatened. In other cases we 


112 The Education of Behaviour 


cannot be so certain, but impulsive activity is usually 
accompanied by facial expression which is undoubtedly 
reflex in nature. Thus there is reason to believe that 
each impulse is connected innately with a more or less 
complex system of reflexes to which energy is diverted 
automatically whenever the impulse is stimulated. 


E. Summary 


In conclusion we may sum up the main points in 
this chapter as follows. From the point of view of 
the student of behaviour, the function of the nervous 
system is twofold: the centres of the spine and lower 
brain control a large number of activities which are 
essential to our well-being and they do this reflexly, so 
that each stimulus produces the right reaction without 
any conscious interference on our part; the centres 
of the cerebrum enable us to become aware of our 
environment and to act in accordance with our desires. 
Our knowledge of the physiology of impulse is still very 
limited, but we have reason to believe that the energy 
set free by any percept is used partly in voluntary 
and partly in reflex activity, and that the amount of 
energy which can be expended in these ways on any 
particular occasion is under the control of certain 
nerve-centres in the thalamus. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE GROWTH AND CONTROL OF HABITS 


A. The Law of Habit and its Effect on Behaviour. 
B. The Origin of Habits. 

(1) Consciously Acquired Habits. 

(2) Unconsciously Acquired Habits. 


C. The Growth and Control of Consciously Acquired Habits 
of Choice. 


(1) Rules for Acquiring Habits with the Minimum of 
Effort. 


(2) The Effect of Indecision on the Growth of Habits. 
(3) The So-called “Transference” of Habits. 


A. The Law of Habit 


WE saw in the last chapter that our conscious acts, 
thoughts and feelings are the psychological equivalents 
of the physiological phenomena which are produced by 
the flow of nervous energy through the cerebrum. We 
also saw that nervous energy encounters resistance the 
first time it flows along a new path, but that each 
repetition decreases this resistance so that practice can 
make any path habitual, by rendering it easier than any 
of its alternatives. We may therefore state the Law of 


113 


114 The Education of Behaviour 


Habit as follows: Every response to a stimulus— 
whether act or thought—tends to recur when the 
stimulus recurs, and every such recurrence itself 
strengthens this tendency. Clearly this does not mean 
that the recurrence of a stimulus is in itself sufficient to 
make the resulting act habitual. At times our behaviour 
produces unpleasant results, at others it is “abnormal” 
in the sense that it is due to the temporary weakening 
of some well-established sentiment or habit. In such 
cases contrary forces are likely to prove too strong on 
the next occasion and the response of the moment will, 
therefore, not have a chance of becoming habitual, no 
matter how often the stimulus recurs. 

Our tendency to form habits enables us to make 
numbers of useful responses automatic. Thus we 
gradually learn to look round if we hear the hoot of a 
motor, to turn out the electric light when we go out 
of a room, and so forth. And these actions tend to 
become so automatic that we sometimes look up at the 
hoot of a motor when we are safely on the foot-path, 
or turn out the electric light when there are other 
persons left in the room. Moreover, as we all know, 
many of our most valuable habits consist of long 
series of responses which practice has bound together 
into one automatic whole. Thus we are able to write 
familiar words, to walk up and down stairs, and even 
to find our way to our place of daily work, without 


Growth and Control of Habits 115 


attending to what we are doing. In fact the me- 
chanisms seem to work themselves once we have started 
them and we are often barely aware of what is going 
on, unless the normal path is blocked by some unusual 
obstacle. The reader may obtain some idea of the way 
in which these series grow up by practising a short 
sentence, such as “I am going out,” until he can write 
it as one mechanical whole. He will find that he is at 
first aware of every word as he finishes it, but that 
the words gradually merge into each other, so that 
he can ultimately write the whole sentence as though 
it were one single word. This means that there was 
at the beginning of the experiment more or less 
resistance between the sensations accompanying the 
finishing of one word and the first movement required 
for the next, and that this resistance was decreased 
by practice until it grew too slight to produce aware- 
ness. We can therefore represent the series which is 
rendered mechanical when habits of this kind are being 
formed as :— 

Stimulus — 1st movement > resulting sensations 
> 2nd movement > resulting sensations > , , , > 

. . to the end of the series. 

It should be noticed that the intermediate sensa- 
tions only develop into percepts so long as there is a 
certain amount of resistance in the path which the 
nervous energy has to take. Afterwards we are only 


116 The Education of Behaviour 


aware of the initial stimulus and of the final sensations, 
which mean that the task is completed, and are there- 
fore free to attend to other things once we have the 
machine in motion. The reader need only consider 
the number of mechanical tasks he has to accomplish 
day by day, in order to realise how little time he would 
have left for tackling new problems, if he were not 
endowed with the power of executing automatic move- 
ments without becoming aware of them.? 

There is still another way in which the tendency to 
form habits simplifies life. If my alarm clock wakes 
me at six o'clock on a cold winter morning, I am quite 
likely to decide that it is really too cold to get up so 
early and that the piece of work which seemed so 
urgent last night can well be left for another day. But 
if I have decided to form a habit of getting up at 6 
A.M. and therefore force myself to obey the alarm day 
after day in spite of various good reasons to the con- 
trary, I find that these reasons gradually cease to 
obtrude themselves on my consciousness and that I 


* The physiological cause of this loss of awareness is not cer- 
tain. It has been suggested that the resistance which the nervous 
energy encounters is the physiological equivalent of consciousness 
and that every decrease in resistance is accompanied by a cor- 
responding loss of awarenss. There is, however, reason to 
believe that the motor centres which give us control over volun- 
tary movements cease to function when an act has become 
habitual and it is therefore possible that the loss of awareness 
is due to some change in the path taken by the nervous energy 
when the act has become automatic. 


Growth and Control of Habits 117 


presently jump out of bed at the proper time without 
being aware of any choice in the matter. This is an 
instance of what it will be convenient to call a “habit of 
choice.”” Like all habits, it is formed by decreasing the 
resistance between a stimulus and a reaction and it 
only differs from a habit of action in that the reaction 
happens to be an idea instead of a movement or a 
series of movements. Our tendency to lose sight of 
possible alternatives as one course of action becomes 
habitual clearly results in much economy of effort, for 
it reduces both the number of problems we have to 
solve and the number of times we have to exert will- 
power in order to act according to our resolutions. 

To sum up, thanks to the Law of Habit, we drift 
into many useful forms of activity and are also able 
to acquire acts of skill and to learn to behave con- 
sistently without special conscious effort. Moreover, 
the separate elements of an act of skill and the dis- 
turbing alternatives in an act of choice cease to attract 
our attention as these acts become automatic. In short, 
habit makes easy what was at first difficult and thus 
enables us to adapt our actions to our needs with the 
least possible expenditure of energy. 


B. The Origin of Habits 


So far as we know, the only mental systems which 
make for consistency in acquired forms of behaviour 


118 The Education of Behaviour 


are those centres of potential activity which we call 
“sentiments” when they are conscious, and “complexes” 
when they are unconscious. It is therefore to these 
that we must turn for the origin of habits. 

(1) Consciously Acquired Habits——Clearly every 
consciously acquired habit must have been formed in 
response to some conscious desire, and we know that 
conscious desires owe their existence to sentiments. 
We may therefore conclude that consciously acqured 
habits are formed in the service of sentiments. 

(2) Unconsciously Acquired Habits —Though most 
of the habits which are formed in the service of senti- 
ments are acquired consciously, some are, no doubt, 
developed without arousing the awareness of the con- 
scious self. These would be acts which facilitate the 
attainment of some conscious desire, but which involve 
no particular difficulty and can therefore be left to look 
after themselves. Under this heading might come such 
habits as that of looking right and left before crossing 
a busy thoroughfare. Any one who lives in a big city 
is likely to acquire this habit before long, but it is learnt 
with so little conscious effort that it is quite possible to 
take this precaution habitually, without being aware of 
the fact. 

Habits which have been formed under the influence 
of complexes are of greater interest to the educator 
and will therefore be considered at greater length. As 


Growth and Control of Habits 119 


we know, complexes are centres of potential activity, 
and consequently set free energy whenever they are 
stimulated by suitable percepts or ideas. This energy 
must find an outlet of some kind. Moreover, the well- 
being of the individual as a whole demands that that 
outlet should be one which the conscious self can pass 
as meaningless or harmless, otherwise the resulting 
activity will only relieve pressure in the unconscious at 
the expense of shame in the conscious. When an 
outlet of the right kind has been found, it is therefore 
likely to become habitual through frequent use. 

The extent to which an individual acquires habits 
under the influence of unconscious complexes depends 
partly on himself and partly on the traditions of his 
environment. The greater the amount of self-control 
he has to exert, the more likely is he to take refuge in 
repression, and the more repressed complexes he has, 
the more meaningless habits is he likely to acquire. In 
fact the results of psycho-analysis seem to suggest that 
a very large number of our unconsciously formed 
habits owe their origin to repressed complexes.? 

An example may make the process clearer. Under 
favourable conditions the child who is just old 

*Consciously formed habits may owe their origin indirectly 
to complexes, for complexes can find relief through sentiments 
acquired for that purpose. To discuss these would, however, 


take us beyond the limits of this book. (Cf. account of little 
Anna’s interest in geography, pp. 84-85.) 


120 The Education of Behaviour 


enough to begin to look after himself gradually learns 
to accept the joys of childish friendships, and of con- 
struction and discovery, as substitutes for the pleasure 
he derived from the undivided attention of his mother. 
But until he has learnt to “sublimate” his energy in 
these ways, he is likely to experience the desire to be 
once again a small and helpless baby. This desire can- 
not come to consciousness without being repressed, 
for it is contrary to his conscious wish to become big 
and strong. It has therefore to find outlets which are 
not recognised as such, and psycho-analysis has shown 
that these outlets are often thumb-sucking and _ nail- 
biting. As is well known, these bad habits usually 
disappear without much trouble as the child grows 
older, that is to say, as he finds other more satisfying 
uses for his energy. (When the habits persist into 
adolescence there is every reason to believe that the 
child has somehow failed to sublimate his energy and 
is therefore in need of special treatment. ) 

We turn next to the mannerisms and tricks of 
speech which we tend to learn from our environment 
without conscious effort. It can be shown that these, 
too, are habits formed in the service of unconscious 
complexes. Most of us can recall occasions on which 
we grew half aware of a quickly repressed wish that 
we could be content to act like, or live with, certain 
other people. If such a wish occurs just once, it may 


Growth and Control of Habits 121 


only be the outcome of temporary conditions, but if it 
recurs at intervals there must be some permanent 
system behind it, and since that system is not in the 
conscious, we must look for it in the unconscious. 
Hence the revival of a wish of this kind, when we are 
fatigued or day-dreaming, may be taken as a proof for 
the existence of the corresponding complex. Given 
the complex, it must find a means of expression, and 
mannerisms and tricks of speech would serve its 
purpose admirably, just because they are likely to be 
passed as harmless and are yet such as to satisfy the 
unconscious desire to make some effort to resemble 
the members of the group in question. Thumb-suck- 
ing is a case in point, for there can be little doubt that 
it is a source of satisfaction to the unconscious of the 
child because sucking is a characteristic and highly 
pleasurable act of infancy. However, the child who 
habitually sucks his thumb is by no means aware of the 
origin of his habit; he would indignantly repudiate the 
suggestion that he was trying to behave like a baby. 
(It may be well to remind the reader that such facts as 
the origin of thumb-sucking are discovered by the 
method of Free Associations, and that they are not 
present in consciousness until this method has been 
applied. Cf. p. 82.) 

One further point needs consideration, that is the 
tendency to adopt local expressions or mannerisms, not 


122 The Education of Behaviour 


without conscious effort, but definitely, in spite of 
strong resolutions to the contrary. In such cases the 
unconscious complexes are evidently so powerful that 
they find an outlet whenever the conscious self is not 
on the watch. So long as the act in question is un- 
familiar, it attracts attention to itself on account of the 
resistance which it has to overcome. But this resistance 
decreases with repetition until the act has become quite 
mechanical, and the conscious self is, therefore, no 
longer able to inhibit it. When this stage has been 
reached, the unconscious complex has secured for itself 
an outlet which it can use without hindrance, in spite 
of the fact that it is unpleasing to the conscious self. 
The success the complex has achieved in this way sug- 
gests that is must have been very powerful, for only a 
strong complex could have overcome the inhibition by 
the conscious self again and again until it finally 
succeeded in withdrawing its method of expression 
from conscious control by making it mechanical. Sum- 
marising the results of the last few paragraphs, we may 
say that most unconsciously acquired habits are formed 
in the service of complexes, but some are also formed 
in the service of sentiments. In conclusion, it should 
be observed that a habit can rarely be the product of 
some one isolated tendency. Long before the end of 
childhood a percept tends to stimulate more than one 
centre of potential activity, and the resulting act is, 


Growth and Control of Habits 123 


therefore, due to a compromise between the forces that 
have been set free by it. Hence it is not strange to find 
that the habit which is formed in relation to any par- 
ticular set of circumstances can usually be shown to be 
the product of more than one sentiment or complex. 

At times it looks as though a particular habit must 
be due to “chance.” This applies to such acts as taking 
possession of a particular peg in a cloak-room, or 
crossing the road at one particular point on one’s daily 
walk to one’s work. Whenever the reader feels tempted 
to interpret one of his habits in this way, he should 
bear in mind that “chance” is “an extremely complex 
system of causes, of the general nature of which we are 
aware, but of the detailed operation of which we are 
ignorant” (Yule, Theory of Statistics, p. 30), and if 
he examines a fairly new habit of this kind, he will, 
I think, always find that it owes its origin to a number 
of circumstances, some of which he is still able to 
recall.? 


*The reader should note that we are here only concerned 
with the origin of habits. Thus, cycling is a consciously acquired 
habit, because we practise it until we can do it mechanically. 
If we analyse it, it involves a number of acts of skill, most of 
which are learnt most easily without conscious analysis. We are, 
however, not concerned with methods of learning. An act of 
skill, or any other habit, is acquired consciously if it is formed 
in response to a definite desire on the part of the conscious self. 
Whether this end is attained most easily by means of conscious 
analysis or by the “try, try again” method, makes no difference 
to its origin. 


124 The Education of Behaviour 


C. The Growth and Control of Consciously Acquired 
Habits of Choice 


It should be noticed that many of our habits are 
in themselves complex. Thus, neatness in written 
home-work implies both a certain amount of skill in 
the control of pen and ink, and readiness to set aside 
sufficient time for the work. The former is a matter of 
skill, the latter a matter of choice, and both must be 
rendered mechanical, if a true habit is to be formed. 

Since we are mainly concerned with the growth of 
character, it will be convenient to omit the more detailed 
study of habits of skill and to confine ourselves to the 
study of habits of choice for the rest of this chapter. 

(1) Rules for Acquring Habits with the Minimum 
of Effort—It will be remembered that every habit is 
physiologically a path of weak resistance for nervous 
energy. Hence the growth of a habit is aided by every 
act which ensures the further weakening of the selected 
path, and it is hindered by any act which lays the 
foundation for a rival path. Moreover, the resistance 
is greatest the first time the energy is forced along a 
new path, and decreases every time that path is used. 
If we bear these points in mind, we shall have no 
difficulty in formulating the rules for acquiring a habit 
with the minimum of effort. These are four in 
number : 


Growth and Control of Habits 125 


(i) Since the resistance is greatest at the begin- 
ning, it is well to use a moment of enthusiasm for the 
first effort whenever a difficult habit has to be acquired. 

(11) Since every act slightly decreases the resist- 
ance to it on the next occasion, it wastes both time and 
energy to allow an exception to occur until the desired 
habit has become firmly established. 

(iii) We have still to consider the treatment of 
undesirable habits. These may have been formed con- 
sciously or unconsciously, but once they have come into 
existence they only concern us as paths of weak resist- 
ance which we do not wish the nervous energy to use. 
Clearly, it is not sufficient to check ourselves in the act, 
for the nervous energy must find an outlet somewhere. 
The best thing to do is to adopt some one other line of 
action and to repeat this whenever we are aware of 
the stimulus, until it involves less resistance than the 
one to which we object. In other words, we can only 
cure an undesirable habit by associating another 
stronger habit with the same stimulus. 

(iv) Finally, the amount of resistance the new habit 
encounters depends in part on the extent to which it 
satisfies the same sentiments and complexes as the old. 
It is therefore always worth while to discover the 
cause which was mainly responsible for the undesirable 
habit before deciding how to replace it. In some cases, 
such as that of thumb-sucking, it may then be found 


126 The Education of Behaviour 


wise to remove the cause, instead of, or as well as, 
tackling the habits. 

(2) The Effect of Indecision on the Growth of 
Habits.— Sometimes the difficulty which is experienced 
in forming a new habit is due to the fact that the indi- 
vidual has not clearly made up his mind what habit he 
actually wants to acquire. The way in which this lack 
of decision affects the development of habits of choice 
has been studied experimentally by Dr. Boyd Barrett in 
connection with the evolution of motivation. For a 
full description of this interesting investigation, the 
reader is referred to the book, Motive Force and 
Motivation Tracks. Here we shall only be able to give 
what is essential for the present purpose. 

The method of investigation was as follows :— 

Eight colourless liquids were prepared, such as to 
vary in taste from very unpleasant to very pleasant. 
Each of these was given a nonsense name (e.g. ziv), 
so as to avoid complications introduced by chance asso- 
ciations with this or that word. The first part of the 
experiment consisted in teaching the subjects (i.e. the 
men who did the experiment) to associate each name 
with the right taste. After this the main part of the 
work was begun. In this each subject had to choose 
the better of two given liquids, drink it, and imme- 
diately afterwards give a full description of all that 
had passed in his mind during the act of choice. This 


Growth and Control of Habits 127 


introspection (as such a description is usually called) 
was taken down verbatim by the experimenter. 
Besides this, the time taken for each act of choice was 
measured by a special instrument, called the Vernier 
Chronoscope, which measures intervals of time correct 
to oor of a second. There were three subjects, all 
thoroughly experienced in introspection, and between 
them they were responsible for 574 experiments, in 
which the liquids were paired in different ways, each 
pair recurring at intervals. In this way habits of 
choice were gradually established for each pair of 
liquids. The evolution of such habits could therefore 
be studied in the introspections of the subjects. For 
a full account of these the reader is once again referred 
to Boyd Barrett’s book. Here only two cases will be 
given: (a) one in which the choice was easy and, (b) 
one in which the choice was difficult. 

(a) The results obtained in the first case are given 
in Table I. It represents experiments Nos. 28, 42, 63, 
84 and 90. These took place on December 3, 7, 12, 
Ig and 20 respectively. Of the two liquids, “Jor” was 
pleasant, “Laix’” unpleasant. There was therefore no 
difficulty of choice. 

If we examine the table, we notice the following 
points :— 

(1) The reaction times decrease from approximately 
1'2 seconds to ‘8 second and then again to ‘4 second. 


‘xIey = J ‘i0of-= f, 


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Growth and Control of Habits 129 


(2) The structural phenomena are reduced to a 
minimum. After the third experiment the subject only 
looks at each liquid once before he makes his choice. 

(3) The physical phenomena disappear with the 
exception of the one essential judgment, such as “It’s 
the other.” 

(4) Feelings of pleasure and the reverse disappear 
even more readily than other phenomena. 

In other words, automatic choice means economy 
both of time and of nervous energy. 

(b) Table II gives a case in which choice was dif- 
ficult, “Laix” and “Choux’’ being both so exceedingly 
unpleasant that neither was ever chosen unless pitted 
against the other. As will be seen from the table, the 
introspection shows all the signs of hesitation, with the 
annoyance and weariness that attend it. The hesita- 
tion begins in choice 3, develops through choices 4, 5 
and 6, and is finally overcome in the course of the 
last three experiments. 

The main points to be noticed in the first six 
introspections are :-— 

(1) The irregularity in the reaction times, which 
show two increases, each followed by a decrease, in- 
stead of the regular decrease that was obtained when 
the choice was easy (cf. Table I). 

(2) The inconsistency in choice, i.e. the fact that 
“Laix” is taken twice, then ‘‘Choux’”’ seven times. As 


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132 The Education of Behaviour 


shown above, every action lays the foundation for 
the corresponding habit. Thus even to take “Laix” 
twice would be sufficient to form a slight tendency to 
choose it, and would therefore make it a little more 
difficult to form a habit of selecting “Choux.’”’ Thus 
inconsistency of choice causes delay and waste of 
energy. 

(3) The amount of oscillation from one to the other 
and the feelings of regret and annoyance that were 
recorded. These, too, would be responsible for much 
waste of energy. 

The way in which the tendency to hesitate was finally 
overcome will be evident from introspection 7. This 
shows that the subject: (1) consciously avoided oscilla- 
tion by fixing his eyes on “Laix,” and (2) strengthened 
his motive for choosing “Choux” by appealing to the 
general principle, “Take the more familiar.”’ 

Finally, the success of this method is evident from 
the fact that the choice was felt to be easy once it had 
been adopted. (See introspections for Feb. 1 and 
Feb. 8.) 

To sum up, the development of a habit of choice is 
hindered by: (1) careless, hurried or irresponsible acts 
of choice, and (2) regrets, annoyance, etc., over past 
choices. It is therefore well to formulate clear scales 
of value whenever this is at all possible, and to appeal 
to some general principle when it seems impossible to 


Growth and Control of Habits 133 


decide between the different alternatives on any other 
ground. If we do this on the first occasion, we shall 
feel that we have a good motive behind our choice, and 
shall therefore not feel tempted to change our line 
of action after we have laid the foundation for a 
habit. In cases where choice is difficult, this will 
mean an appreciable saving both of time and of 
energy. 

(3) The So-called “Transference” of Habits.— 
When we train children at school in neatness, punctu- 
ality, etc., we do so partly in order to make school- 
work possible, but mainly in the hope of providing our 
pupils with a nucleus of habits which they will find 
useful throughout life. It is therefore very important 
for us to know under what conditions our efforts are 
likely to meet with success in this respect. 

It must be borne in mind that a habit is merely 
an acquired tendency to act in one particular way in 
response to one particular stimulus. If, then, we 
change the stimulus, we thereby cause the nervous 
energy to take a different path, and have consequently 
no right to expect that we can still obtain the habitual 
reaction. Thus punctuality at school is in itself no 
guarantee for punctuality out of school. If the habit 
has only been formed in relation to school, it should 
theoretically only function in relation to school. 

This theoretical conclusion is in agreement with the 


134 The Education of Behaviour 


results obtained by Squire, in an experiment conducted 
to “determine whether the habit of producing neat 
papers in arithmetic will function with reference to neat 
written work in other subjects.’ She found that “the 
results were almost startling in their failure to show 
the slightest improvement in language and spelling 
papers, although the improvement in arithmetic papers 
was noticeable from the first.”” (See Bagley, Educative 
Process, 1905, Chapter XIII, p. 208.) 

Yet, in spite of theory and in spite of experiment, 
we know that this is not a correct statement of the 
case. It is true that many a habit carefully fostered 
at school is lost in adult life but many another survives, 
and though most persons are only neat in this or that, 
yet there are undoubtedly a certain number whom one 
could correctly describe as “neat all round.” There 
must therefore be some force at work which we have 

not yet considered. 
The problem will be made clearer by reference to an 
experiment of Ruediger, which forms the complement 
of that of Squire. Ruediger set out to discover 
whether “the ideal of neatness brought in connection 
with, and applied to one school subject functions in 
other school subjects.”” What exactly this is intended 
to imply becomes clear by referring to the first three of 


*The Indirect Improvement of Mental Functions through 
Ideals, Educational Review, November, 1908. 


Growth and Control of Habits ee 


the instructions he gave to the teachers who were 
responsible for the training. 

These are as follows :— 

“(1) In the written work of one school subject pay 
all the attention you can both to the nabit and to the 
ideal of neatness. Demand neat papers, have them 
re-written when necessary. 

“(2) Talk frequently with the class on the im- 
portance of neatness in dress, business, the home, 
hospitals, etc., connecting it as far as you can with the 
subject under experiment. 

“(3) Do not bring up the subject of neatness in 
connection with the other studies at school. If the 
pupils bring up these studies quietly substitute some- 
guing-elsey 4). .7 

It is clear from this that Ruediger aimed at develop- 
ing a general desire for neatness as well as the habit 
of doing neat work in one particular subject. The 
result he obtained in this way is given by the following 
extract from the same paper :— 

“Fyidently neatness made conscious as an ideal or 
aim in connection with only one school subject does 
function in other school subjects. Directing our 
attention to groups 1 and 3” (the two classes in which 
the instructions were carried out accurately), “the most 
marked improvement of the papers occurred respec- 
tively in geography and arithmetic, the subjects in 


136 The Education of Behaviour 


which neatness was emphasised, but there was un- 
questionable improvement on the average also in other 
subjects.” 

If we now compare Squire’s experiment with that 
of Ruediger, we see that the vital difference between 
them is the difference in the generality of the desire that 
was used by the two experiments. Clearly desire must 
have played its part in Squire’s experiment, though no 
special mention is made of the fact. Otherwise there 
could have been no improvement in the work of the 
children. The interesting point is that the training these 
children were given was calculated to make them want 
to improve in arithmetic alone, and that this was, in 
fact, the only subject in which their work did become 
neater. Similarly, the improvement was more general 
in Ruediger’s experiment, because the desire that was 
stimulated was more general in this case. In other 
words, the children responded in each case to the 
training that was given. The inculcation of a limited 
desire produced a limited improvement, that of a 
general desire a more general improvement. Hence, 
when we see what appears to be a general habit at work, 
we are really only observing the total effect of a 
number of particular habits, each one of which was 
acquired separately in order to satisfy the more or less 
general desire which acted as the common stimulus 
for all of them, 


Growth and Control of Habits 137 


In any particular case, both the extent to which a 
habit spreads and its permanence, must, therefore, 
depend on the desire which acts as stimulus or motive 
force. A child may look upon, e.g., punctuality as a 
rather superfluous virtue which is for some reason 
exacted by school authorities. He may yet be punctual 
at school, because he desires the approval of his teachers 
or school-fellows. It is, however, very unlikely that 
such a child will “transfer” the habit to activities con- 
nected with his home life, or that he will be punctual of 
his own accord once the pressure of school opinion has 
been removed. 

In other words, new habits suited to a change in 
environment will only be formed in so far as the motive 
that was responsible for the original habit is felt to be 
applicable to that environment. Hence, the less a 
motive is bound up with any particular environment, 
the greater is the chance for so-called transference. 
Evidently the conviction that “this is worth doing for 
its own sake”’ is likely to produce the most widespread 
results, always assuming that it has real driving force 
behind it. How such a conviction develops will be 
discussed in the chapters on Character, 


CHAPTER VII 


EMOTION AND SYMPATHY | 


A. Emotion. — 
(1) The James-Lange Theory of Emotions. 
(2) The Biological Value of Pleasure-toned Emotions. 
(3) The Control of Emotions. 
B. Sympathy. 
(1) The Psychology of “Pure” Sympathy. 


(2) The Possible Effects of Tendencies which Check 
Imitation. 


(a) Indifference. 
(b) Expression in Emotion. 
(c) Desire to Help. 
(3) The Growth of Sympathy in Childhood and Adoles- 
cence. 


(a) The Importance of Personal Experience and 
Imagination. 


(b) Problems connected with the Self-absorption of 
the Adolescent. 


(c) Problems connected with the Awkwardness and 
Shyness of the Adolescent. 


A. Emotion 


(1) The James-Lange Theory of Emotions.—We 
saw in Chapter II that certain of the impulses may 


be accompanied by feeling tones so characteristic that 
138 


Emotion and Sympathy 139 


popular usage has given them definite names. These 
are the emotions fear, anger, love, hate, etc. They are 
states of mind with which every one is familiar in 
greater or less degree. Every one can therefore form 
some idea of their constitution by examining emotional 
stages of his own immediately after they have run 
their course. If he does this, he will find that each 
characteristic feeling tone is accompanied by physio- 
logical changes within the body which are in some 
way very closely connected with it. In the case of acute 
fear, for instance, the victim of the emotion trembles 
violently, he. becomes covered with cold sweat, the 
hairs on the skin stand erect, his heart beats wildly 
-and his breathing is hurried and irregular. If the 
fear is less extreme, the symptoms are, of course, not 
so well marked, but even then we can often tell that a 
certain person is frightened by what we call his “‘ex- 
pression,” that is to say, by the external bodily changes 
which form part of the system of the impulse to avoid 
danger. Indeed, so closely is the emotion connected 
with the bodily and visceral changes that accompany 
it, that it has been suggested that what we call emo- 
tion is really only the effect these changes have upon 
the mind. This is the physiological theory of emo- 
tions. It was enunciated at about the same time by 
James and Lange, and is, therefore, usually called the 
James-Lange Theory of Emotions. James states it 


140 The Education of Behaviour 


thus: “The bodily changes follow directly the per- 
ception of the exciting fact, and our feeling of the 
same changes as they occur is the emotion” (Prin- 
ciples, p. 449). 

The main arguments in favour of this theory are 
the following :— 

(a) We may get widespread bodily effects before 
the emotion is aroused. “If we abruptly see a dark, 
moving form in the woods, our heart stops beating and 
we catch our breath instantly and before any articulate 
idea of danger can arise” (Principles, p. 451). 

(b) The bodily symptoms are so much part of the 
emotional state that there seems to be no emotion left, 
if we try to abstract from our consciousness all feel- 
ings of these symptoms. “Can one fancy the state of 
rage and picture no ebullition in the chest, no flushing 
of the face, no dilation of the nostrils, no clenching of 
the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action, but in their 
stead limp muscles, calm breathing and a placid face? 
The present writer, for one, certainly cannot. The 
rage is as completely evaporated as the sensation of its 
so-called manifestations, and the only thing that can 
possibly be supposed to take its place is some cold- 
blooded and dispassionate judicial sentence, confined 
entirely to the intellectual realm, to the effect that a 
certain person or persons merit chastisement for their 
sins’ (Principles, II, p. 452). 


Emotion and Sympathy 141 


The main argument against the theory is that it 
does not explain how different visceral processes can 
produce the same emotion. Why, for instance, do 
some people turn red, others white, with anger? It is, 
however, possible that the anger does, in fact, feel 
somewhat different in the two cases. Clearly the ques- 
tion can only be settled finally by means of experiments 
conducted for that purpose, but the results that have 
been obtained by different investigators are at present 
too contradictory to enable us to arrive at any con- 
clusion. We may assume, then, that emotions cannot 
exist without accompanying bodily changes, but 
whether they are interdependent, and, if so, in what 
way, are problems which still await solution (cf. p. 
UT): 

At the same time it is worth while to bear in mind 
that expression can, at any rate, initiate mild states of 
emotion and perpetuate strong ones. If we frown, 
we get a momentary feeling of anger, and if we can 
make ourselves ‘‘smooth the brow and smile,’ the 
anger seems thereby to become less, 

(2) The Biological Value of Pleasure-toned Emo- 
tions.—The biological value of pleasure-toned emotions 
is another problem which calls for solution. At first 
sight anything beyond a keen desire to attain the end 
of the impulse (e. g. to escape from danger) would 
appear to be a hindrance rather than a help, seeing that 


142 The Education of Behaviour 


it uses up energy which might easily be expended more 
profitably. Every one knows how fatal it is to lose 
one’s head at a critical moment, and to “lose one’s 
head”’ is really neither more nor less than to let ‘one’s 
emotions gain the upper hand, that is to say, to dis- 
sipate energy in emotional expression instead of using 
it to select the best line of action. 

It should be noticed that it only depends on the 
strength of an emotion whether it is pleasant or un- 
pleasant. We rather enjoy feeling just a little afraid 
or just a little angry. We tend to prolong such ex- 
periences, instead of seeking to remove the cause of 
the emotion. As the student of biology knows, inborn 
tendencies which produce pleasure, when expressed in 
action, are, on the whole, of advantage to the individual. 
It is therefore not without good reason that a slight 
emotion is pleasurable. To understand what this 
reason may be, we need only recall that an emotion is 
produced when more energy is set free by the percept 
than is used in action, and that energy which is set 
free in this way normally seeks an outlet of some kind, 
so that an emotion is produced when there is surplus 
energy flowing through the nervous system. The fact 
that a slight emotion is pleasurable is, in short, Nature’s 
way of teaching us to “think before we leap,” for it 
makes the time between perception and _ reaction 
pleasurable, and thus tempts us to prolong it when the 


Emotion and Sympathy 143 


need is not too urgent. We shall realise the value of 
this by considering what would happen if an individual 
always experienced acute discomfort in the period be- 
tween perception and reaction. Under such circum- 
stances he would naturally strive to react as quickly 
as possible. This would mean that he would always 
choose the most obvious form of reaction and would 
therefore find it very difficult to adapt himself to a 
changing environment. 

(3) The Control of Emotions.—While a slight emo- 
tional state has thus an important function to fulfil, the 
matter is very different when action is delayed so long, 
or when the amount of energy set free by the, percept 
is so great that the individual is overwhelmed by his 
emotions, In such a case the means by which he tries 
to relieve pressure may act as safety-valves for energy 
that would otherwise work harm, but they do not, as 
a rule, help him to attain the end of the impulse which 
was the cause of the trouble. We are thus led to con- 
sider the advisability of preventing this kind of over- 
flow by training children in self-control in the matter 
of emotions, | 

The first thing to realise in this connection is that 
an impulse cannot be killed. The nervous energy which 
is set free by the percept may be driven into desirable 
or into undesirable channels, but it cannot be annihi- 
lated. 


144 The Education of Behaviour 


This may seem to be untrue at first sight, for every 
adult has learnt to be indifferent to experiences that 
would at one time have roused fear, anger or curiosity. 
It is, however, easy to show that this is due to a 
different cause. To take a concrete example: When 
moving staircases were first put into the stations of the 
London Underground Railways, it was a common oc- 
currence to see people show real fear in stepping on or 
off these staircases, whereas most persons do it quite 
mechanically to-day. Those of us who had occasion 
to use these staircases frequently, found that the fear 
quickly became slight enough to be nothing more than 
a little pleasurable excitement, and that it soon dis- 
appeared entirely. But this does not mean that we had 
cured ourselves of our fear of danger. What it means 
is that we had learnt from experience exactly what to 
do and how to do it. Thus the moving staircase 
ceased to be an unknown object which might prove 
dangerous, and in this way dropped out of the class 
of things that rouse the impulse to avoid pain and the 
accompanying emotion of fear. The next unknown 
thing that we have to face will undoubtedly again cause 
fear if it seems likely to threaten our safety. In other 
words, every increase in knowledge and power will 
remove certain experiences from the class of things 
that rouse this or that emotion, but when a percept 
or idea does fall within a certain class, then it is im- 


Emotion and Sympathy 145 


possible to prevent ourselves from experiencing the 
corresponding impulse. 

It follows that we can never kill an emotion, even if 
it were desirable to do so. All we can do with an 
emotion which is liable to get out of hand is to learn 
to control it, or to repress it. Moreover, since the sur- 
plus nervous energy has to escape in some form, it is 
obviously wiser to guide it into useful, or at least harm- 
less, channels than merely to block the outlet Nature 
has provided and trust to luck that it will escape with- 
out doing us injury. Hence mere repression ought 
always to be discouraged. How much self-control is 
desirable in a particular case depends in the main on 
the traditions of the community in which the individual 
has to live. A person who is felt to be rather cold in 
one environment is quite likely to be considered too 
emotional in another. Yet, since self-control prevents 
dissipation of energy, a certain amount of it should 
undoubtedly be acquired by every person who is not 
- abnormally lacking in emotional life. 

What exactly is involved in self-control can be dis- 
covered partly through introspection, partly by study- 
ing the behaviour of others. If we follow these two 
lines of investigation, we shall, I think, find that it is 
really a complex result which is obtained by the co- 
operation of a number of factors. Fundamental to all 
is the conviction that self-control is desirable. But 


146 The Education of Behaviour 


that alone is not sufficient. The individual has to learn 
both what to avoid and what to do before he is able 
to acquire the habits of choice which will give him the 
necessary command over himself. Usually he is left 
to find out these things for himself. Thus he discovers 
that a slight emotion tends to disappear, if it is not 
allowed expression. He may also learn that it is not 
safe to allow himself the luxury of dwelling on a strong 
desire, if he does not intend to satisfy it. 

Then, too, he is likely to make certain discoveries on 
the positive side, such as the importance of keeping 
himself fully occupied when he is trying to free him- 
self from something that is preying on his mind and 
the extent to which a really interesting task will help 
him in this connection. Besides this, he may learn 
consciously to divert superfluous energy into suitable 
channels, to “‘try, try again,” instead of brooding over 
failure. At any rate he probably acquires certain 
methods of side-tracking energy while the impulse is 
actually at work. Thus some yawn when afraid, 
others sing when angry. It is worth while to notice 
that people resort to devices of this nature without 
being aware of their purpose. Thus an individual may 
not realise that there is a connection between, say, his 
attempt to control his fear and his tendency to yawn, 
but this does not, of course, make the act any less 
effective as a safety-valve. 


Emotion and Sympathy 147 


As devices of this nature are discovered they tend 
to be adopted, with the result that habits of choice 
grow up in relation to situations which the individual 
has to encounter with sufficient frequency. Thus self- 
control involves certain habits and certain knowledge, 
as well as the necessary desire. It should therefore not 
be expected from young children. The educator can, 
however, prepare the ground for it by finding suitable 
safety-valves when impulsive activity has to be checked, 
and by giving practical advice when the child is old 
enough to appreciate it. With preparatory training 
such as this the adolescent would find himself in pos- 
session of habits and knowledge which would make it 
comparatively easy for him to acquire true self-control 
—that is to say, power to divert surplus energy into 
useful or at least harmless channels. 


B. Sympathy 


If a boy comes upon a group of schoolmates who 
look frightened, he also experiences a pang of fear; if 
they seem curious, he begins to wonder what is hap- 
pening. But if that same boy is passing through the 
stage of despising girls, he will pass a group of girls 
who look angry or puzzled with a cursory glance and 
the conviction that it is no concern of his. The same 
is, of course, true of adults. We have all of us reason 


148 The Education of Behaviour 


to know that it requires a definite effort not to become 
infected by the emotional state of any one who in any 
sense of the word “belongs” to us, even when we have 
no idea what is the cause of his excitement. Yet the 
behaviour of people outside our “group” leaves us in- 
different, or even arouses some contrary state of mind 
such as amusement or annoyance. The tendency to 
“feel with” other people is therefore closely bound up 
with gregariousness. The larger and the more numer- 
ous the groups to which we feel we belong, the 
more often will this tendency be called into play. Any 
individual who belongs to our group for the purpose 
in hand will inevitably rouse it, and one who does not 
will as certainly leave us unaffected. It will be con- 
venient to call this tendency to feel with others of our 
own group pure psychological sympathy, in order to 
distinguish it from sympathy in the popular sense of 
the word. 

(1) The Psychology of “Pure” Sympathy.—We 
have already seen that gregariousness (that is to say, 
fear of solitude with or without the desire for friends) 
tends to make us imitate the behaviour of others, and 
that this imitation extends to emotions as well as 
action. We know from our study of imitation that 
the reproduction of the actions of others is due to the 
interaction of one or other form of gregariousness 
with one or more sentiments or complexes. We have 


Emotion and Sympathy 149 


now to account for the reproduction of emotional 
states. It seems probable that this is primarily due to 
our tendency to imitate the expression of our com- 
panions, since it is sufficient to assume the typical ex- 
pression of an emotion (e.g. the frown and the clenched 
fists of anger) in order to experience the same to a 
slight extent. But this does not explain whence we 
derive the energy to feel furiously angry as a member 
of an angry crowd when we do not even know the 
cause of the disturbance. Nor does it explain why or 
how we learn to notice so small a thing as the expres- 
sion of another.? 

The tendency to notice the expression of others is 
probably acquired during childhood under the pressure 
of the self-preservative impulses. A child is depend- 
ent on others for most of the good things of life and 
he usually finds out at a comparatively early age that 
it often only depends on the mood of his elders whether 
they give or withhold the necessary facilities for some 
exploit. Thus he soon discovers that the moods of 
others are worthy of consideration. It may be that 
experience would gradually teach him to connect certain 
expressions with certain moods, but as a matter of fact 

**We must become aware of an act before we can imitate it, 
but such awareness need not necessarily be conscious. It may 
be due to the activity of some unconscious complex (cf. Chap- 


ter IV, p. 98). Both these points are therefore in need of fur- 
ther consideration. 


150 The Education of Behaviour 


he is rarely left to his own resources in this respect. 
“Don’t worry Father, can’t you see that he is tired?” 
makes him at least try to “see,” and ‘We can risk this 


’ 


to-day, Mr. X is obviously in a good temper,” makes 
him anxious to acquire similar wisdom when the pre- 
diction turns out to be correct. Once the desire has 
been aroused, the rest is a matter of learning by trial 
and error. At first many mistakes are made, but 
there is no lack of practice and the child of seven or 
eight is often already quite expert in interpreting such 
forms of expression as come within his experience. 
The strength which an induced emotion can acquire 
in a crowd can be explained in the following way. As 
we know, we produce a slight feeling of anger in 
ourselves by assuming the characteristic expression of » 
anger, that is to say, we stimulate the system of im- 
pulse to fight by this means. If our expression is due 
to the fact that we are imitating the members of a 
crowd of which we form part, then our gregariousness 
is active and the resulting desire (conscious or un- 
conscious) to be like the others provides energy for 
the impulse to fight. Self-regard may be stimulated 
as well, if the persons whose anger induced ours hap- 
pen to belong to a group of which we are rather proud 
to be members, for it is then impossible to own that 
they are in the wrong without at the same time hurting 
our self-respect. Thus a number of powerful senti- 


Emotion and Sympathy 151 


ments and complexes may reinforce the original feeling 
of anger. 

(2) Possible Effects of Tendencies which Check 
Imitation.—(a) Indifference. What happens there- 
after depends on circumstances. We may allow the 
energy to take its primitive path: then we imitate the 
behaviour of our companions without giving a thought 
to the why and wherefore. If they fight, we fight; if 
they run away, we run away. In such a case all the 
energy of the group will be expended in action, and 
there will then be little or no emotion. On the other 
hand, there may be no such outlet. Thus the crowd 
which is listening to an orator who is enflaming it with 
a desire to fight for some cause, has no outlet in action, 
because the enemy is not at hand. Hence the energy 
which is being set free takes the only path that is open 
for it, namely, that of anger and its expression. More- 
over, the anger of any individual is fed by the anger 
of his neighbours if he identifies himself with the 
crowd. 

Suppose, however, that some of the members of the 
audience feel superior to the rest of the crowd, that 
they have little belief in the orator, or enough know- 
ledge to be aware that some of his statements are not 
accurate. Clearly these will remain calm and critical 
throughout the harangue, or, if stirred at all, will only 
be aware of a desire to oppose the orator. They do 


152. The Education of Behaviour 


not acknowledge him as their leader, and are therefore 
not influenced by him. They do not acknowledge the 
crowd as one of their “groups,” and are therefore not 
infected by its excitement. 

(b) Expression in Emotion—We may, however, 
“feel with” our companions and yet check the impulse 
to act like them. In that case there are two courses 
open to us: we may either decide to do nothing at all, 
or we may use our energy to help them in some 
way. 

If we do nothing, the energy which has been set 
free tends to escape by the channel of emotional ex- 
pression, since that is the only one which is open to 
it. As we shall see later, this provides us with a 
valuable source of recreation by enabling us to “live 
through” the emotions depicted in a work of fiction 
or engendered by the perception of beauty, without 
forcing us to express ourselves in action (cf. Passive 
Play, p. 233). On the other hand, it is not for the 
good of the community that an individual should get 
into the habit of finding relief in emotion, since such 
a course can only end in self-indulgence and senti- 
mentalism. 

(c) Desire to Help.—tlf we are conscious of a desire 
to help our companions, the energy which was set free 
by observing them must have been diverted to stimulate 
the protective impulse. In such a case we may be 


Emotion and Sympathy T53 


stirred so deeply that we act first and think afterwards. 
As a rule there is, however, time for the self to wake 
up, and it then depends on the idea we have of our 
“self” whether we are willing to make the necessary 
sacrifice. If the cost is not too great, we allow the im- 
pulse to take its normal path, and consequently give 
help of some kind (cf. Protective Impulse, p. 43). 
Otherwise we check our desire to help and expend the 
energy that has been set free in various forms of emo- 
tional expression, such as assurances of what we would 
do, if we could. 

It should be noticed that the sympathy which ex- 
presses itself in a desire to help always implies a certain 
degree of superiority on the part of the giver. At 
that moment he is, at any rate, not in the sarhe diffi- 
culty; the fact that he would like to help is sufficient 
to prove that. Moreover, if he allows the impulse free 
play, he provides so much more food for his self- 
assertion. Hence, giving without receiving in return 
is likely to lead to patronage, if not to pity. True 
practical sympathy only exists between equals, that is 
to say, between persons who are able and willing to 
help each other. 

Within our own group we respect our superiors, 
sympathise with our equals and pity our inferiors. 
Outside our own group we are dealing with creatures 
we do not know, with beings with whom we have 


154 The Education of Behaviour 


nothing in common. They do not stir our gregarious- 
ness and are therefore unable to awaken our sym- 
pathy. If they seem dangerous, we avoid them; if 
they seem weak and defenceless, we ignore them or 
use them to satisfy our love of power. When we are 
dealing with members of our own group sympathy 
often forces us to restrain ourselves. Here there is no 
such check. They are so different from us that we 
are unable to feel with them. If challenged, we should 
probably assert quite honestly, “Oh, they don’t mind,” 
or, “It does not hurt them as it would you or me.” 
This is the attitude of mind which accounts for much 
of the cruelty of young boys. It is true that an act 
of cruelty is occasionally a form of revenge. If a 
child is repressed on every side and feels in revolt 
against his environment, he may suddenly discover 
that he can find relief for his feelings by maltreating 
a cat oradog. Such a child may learn to enjoy watch- 
ing the fear and suffering of his victims. But these 
cases are fortunately rare. In most cases cruelty is 
simply due to thoughtlessness combined with self- 
assertion. The animal does not rouse the sympathy 
of the boy, because his groups are not yet wide enough 
to include it, and he can therefore ill-treat it without 
being checked by any feeling of remorse at the suf- 
fering he is causing. Obviously, cruelty of this kind 
can be prevented by awakening the boy’s power to 


Emotion and Sympathy 155 


“feel with” the creature in question. In this way it is 
usually possible to turn the persecutor into quite an 
effective protector. 

In dealing with the inferior members of our own 
groups we are not likely to be guilty of intentional 
cruelty, in spite of our feeling of superiority, because 
psychological sympathy makes us “feel with’? them in 
their troubles. Moreover, self-assertion prevents us 
from imitating them and we must therefore either vent 
our energy in emotion or use it in giving help of some 
kind. Most people would, however, agree that serious 
harm is at times done by the help which is given in 
this way. This is due partly to self-assertion and 
partly to ignorance. As the recipients are our inferiors, 
we are prepared to find them different in some ways, 
and it is therefore easy for us to salve our conscience 
with the reflection that they ‘“‘will not mind’ when we 
are tempted to give help which will satisfy our love 
of power at the expense of their self-respect. Moreover, 
it is only in the wider groups, such as those comprised 
by humanity and nationality, that we acknowledge 
them as comrades. In other respects they belong to 
groups about which we know nothing and for which 
we have consequently no sympathy. We are there- 
fore unable to appreciate their needs as clearly as those 
of our equals and are consequently in danger of giving 
the wrong kind of help even when actuated by the best 


156 The Education of Behaviour 


of motives. In short, the giver needs knowledge and 
self-control, if his help is to be of real use to the 
recipient. From the point of view of community life, 
it is therefore very important that young people should 
be trained to use their protective impulse to the best 
advantage. How far this is secured by encouraging 
them to contribute to public charities is at least open 
to question (cf. Protective Impulse, pp. 43-46). 

(3) The Growth of Sympathy in Childhood and 
Adolescence.—Before concluding, it will be worth 
while to study the factors on which the growth of 
sympathy depends. 

I shall begin with pure psychological sympathy. As 
we have just seen, this is the tendency to reproduce 
in ourselves the emotions which are being experienced 
by our companions. Thus the frequency with which 
an individual “feels with’ others depends primarily on 
the number of persons who are able to stimulate his 
gregariousness. This must in turn depend on the 
strength of the underlying sentiments and complexes, 
but the range of persons with whom he is able to sym- 
pathise can be greatly increased by providing him with 
suitable experience and by encouraging him to bring 
his imagination to bear on the problems which are 
raised by the conduct of others. 

(a) The Importance of Personal Experience and 
Imagination.—The need for personal experience be- 


Emotion and Sympathy 157 


comes obvious when we reflect that we have to gather 
the mental states of others from their expression 
and their words. We can only see what we know. It 
is true that we tend to put some meaning into every 
act and word of our companions, but it is the meaning 
which is most 1n accord with our own experience and 
it may therefore be hopelessly incorrect. 

Children often give us an opportunity to realise. this. 
They do not “see” when the adult is worried or tired, 
they do not understand when he tries to explain his 
point of view to them: A harassed peasant farmer is 
driven by the need for sympathy to tell his little 
daughter of five that he is going to clear a piece of 
waste ground single-handed. The child is greatly 
flattered by her father’s confidence and vaguely aware 
that there is something wrong, but his hopes and wor- 
ries are quite beyond her. Anxious to show her 
interest, she finally asks: “And how about the bird- 
nests, father?’ (Bazin). 

In childhood we are only able to “feel with” persons 
whose lives are very similar to our own; but this is 
no longer the case as we grow older, for we gradually 
accumulate enough experience to be able to build from 
it or “imagine” the mental state of persons whose 
problems are somewhat different from any we have 
had to tackle. 

During adolescence the individual should therefore 


158 The Education of Behaviour 


greatly extend the range of his sympathies. In prac- 
tice there are, however, great differences in the extent 
to which this is actually achieved. ‘For some a chance 
word or a headline in a newspaper is presently suf- 
ficient to rouse them, others need a detailed account, or 
even the outward signs of joy or suffering to awaken 
their sympathy, and a certain number never learn to 
“feel with’ any one whose life is at all unlike their 
own. No doubt this is partly due to inborn differences : 
the more gregarious a person is, the more imaginative 
he is, the easier does he find it to sympathise with them. 
All the same it is the environment which decides what 
use a particular adolescent learns to make of his 
powers, for he will check or indulge his natural interest 
in another according to the standards of behaviour 
of those he admires, and he will do his best to under- 
stand the point of view of an inferior or rest satisfied 
with unimaginative patronage according to the example 
they set him. 

The extent to which we experience “practical sym- 
pathy,” or a desire to help those in difficulty instead of 
merely “feeling with’ them, is clearly dependent on 
similar factors. Innate differences in the strength of 
the protective impulse must play their part, but the 
traditions absorbed from the environment are usually 
far more important. 

(b) The Self-absorption of the Adolescent—The 


Emotion and Sympathy 159 


reader may have noticed that the sympathies of the 
adolescent usually develop by fits and starts. At times 
he is keenly interested in the doings of others, at times 
wholly self-absorbed and only able to see things from 
his own point of view. This is probably unavoidable. 
Self-preservation impels us to look after ourselves first 
of all. Hence the success or failure of a companion ap- 
peals to us primarily as something which might have 
happened to ourselves. It is true that we “feel with” 
the other, but we do not rest satisfied with that, if 
we are at all likely to be in the same position ourselves 
some day. In such a case our self-regard promptly 
makes us wonder how we should have acted under 
similar circumstances. Moreover, if we are compelled 
to admit to ourselves that we should have been unable 
to cope with the situation, it causes us to look upon 
the event as a personal warning, and thus impels us 
to do our utmost to acquire the qualities which we 
consider necessary. The adolescent is often in this 
position, for he is continually hearing or reading about 
things which might fall to his lot some day and which 
would certainly find him unprepared. Besides, he oc- 
casionally has unpleasant experiences of his own. 
Hence it is not strange to find that there are times 
when he needs all his energy for the solution of his 
own problems. When a youth is going through a 
phase of this kind he may become irritable and difficult, 


160 The Education of Behaviour 


for the emotional strain can be very great and he is 
often only half aware of what is going on within him. 
In the right environment he is, however, all the better 
for his spell of egotism. Sooner or later he finds relief 
in hard intellectual work, in religious exercises, or in a 
combination of the two. Then his “self” gradually 
becomes less absorbing and he is once again able to — 
think of others. 

We may take it, then, that the periods of self- 
absorption to which the adolescent is liable are due to 
his efforts to prepare himself for adult life. The 
difficulties with which he is faced at such times make 
him peculiarly sensitive to the opinion of those he ad- 
mires; yet he rarely confides in them, for his thoughts 
are so vague and his fear of ridicule is so great that 
he usually finds it impossible to express himself in 
words. Hence it is often extremely difficult to know 
what kind of help to give. All the same, it is not wise 
to leave him entirely to his own resources when he is 
passing through one of these phases. 

The intelligent youth soon discovers that the pursuit 
of knowledge or art can be very attractive for its own 
sake. Asa rule he also finds that people rather respect 
him for his love of study, and that he can therefore 
always plead ‘‘work’”’ when he wants to escape from 
some tiresome social obligation. Hence he is liable 
to become excessively self-centred, if he is allowed to 


Emotion and Sympathy 161 


think that no one has any claim on his time so long 
as he is doing his work properly. 

Moreover, it is not always love of study that renders 
a youth self-absorbed, often it is rather fear of life 
that makes him take to study as a way out of his 
difficulties. This fear may be due to the example set 
by some one he admires, or to some shock he has ex- 
perienced himself. In either case he is seldom aware 
of the bearing it has on his love of study. Often he 
does not even know that he is afraid, for he represses 
the unpleasant thoughts again and again under the in- 
fluence of shame, and usually ends by “forgetting” 
them so far as his conscious self is concerned. Unfor- 
tunately this does not mean that he has thereby con- 
quered his fear of life, since that can only be done 
by facing the unpleasant experience squarely (cf. 
Complexes, p. 88). As we have already seen, the fear 
is merely driven below the surface of consciousness 
and is able to affect his behaviour as much as ever. 
Still, he has gained a certain amount in personal com- 
fort. He has forgotten all about it, and can therefore 
honestly persuade himself that his dislike for social 
intercourse is merely a matter of “taste.” Usually he 
goes a step further and decides that those who differ 
from him in this matter are both frivolous and super- 
ficial. Once this stage has been reached he is quite 
safe from painful recollections, for the opinions of 


162 The Education of Behaviour 


those others cease to be worthy of his notice. Hence- 
forth he can concentrate on his own development with- 
out a single qualm of conscience. Needless to say, 
the result is likely to be an individual who is both self- 
centred and narrow-minded. 

It is difficult to deal with a case of this kind in its 
later stages, because the individual is perfectly satisfied 
with the course he has mapped out for himself. Ideally 
the emotional shock should, of course, have been 
avoided. Failing that, its effect can be minimised 
by giving the adolescent an opportunity to “talk it 
out” with a sympathetic elder before he has begun to 
repress it. This, too, is often impossible, for pride 
usually impels a youth to keep his fears to himself. 
Thus he may have time to build up his defences fairly 
securely before we discover that there is anything 
amiss. In such a case a direct frontal attack is use- 
less, for he does not consider himself at fault. It may, 
however, be possible to influence him indirectly 
through his environment. If he finds himself among 
people whose efficiency in his chosen pursuits is greater 
than his own, and who yet consider it wrong to allow 
their work to absorb all their thoughts, he may begin 
to wonder whether he has planned his own life wisely 
and may thus be led to try to overcome his dislike 
for social intercourse. Whether he succeeds in this 
will then depend on the amount of hold his fear has 


Emotion and Sympathy 163 


got over him. He may be able to conquer it. On 
the other hand, it may check him at every turn, making 
it impossible for him to “feel with’ any one whose 
tastes are at all unlike his own. If he fails, there is 
still one other way of helping him. The forgotten 
fear can be brought back to his consciousness in the 
way that was described in Chapter IV (see p. 79). 
He can then be made to see the bearing it has on his 
other difficulties, and can thus be taught the importance 
of fighting it in the open. He may even then need 
encouragement from some one he respects, to make 
him persist in his efforts, but with that he is almost 
certain to overcome his dislike in the end. 

(c) The Awkwardness and Shyness of the Adoles- 
cent.—Sometimes the development of the sympathy of 
an adolescent is checked in a different way. He does not 
consciously turn away from others, but he is practically 
driven from their presence by his awkwardness and 
shyness. He trembles and turns red in the presence 
of strangers, he may even begin to stammer—in fact, 
he shows all the signs of fear. It is easy enough to 
convince such a one that his fear of strangers is 
illogical, but that does not help him, for it does not 
touch the true cause of his difficulties. As analysis 
shows, that is always an experience which happened 
perhaps years ago and which was repressed at the time, 
instead of being faced openly. Thus Dr. Bruce gives 


164 The Education of Behaviour 


us the following account of a young man who suffered 
from this extreme form of shyness: From among the 
half-forgotten memories of his boyhood there ap- 
peared the picture of his first employer—a stern, cold, 
hard man with piercing eyes. “Those eyes seemed to 
be on me everywhere I went. They seemed to be watch- 
ing for the least mistake I made. I began to wonder 
what would happen to me if I did make mistakes. Then 
I began to feel incompetent, and to fear that he would 
notice my incompetency. I grew nervous, awkward, 
timid. Whenever he spoke to me I jumped, I blushed, 
I trembled. After a time I did the same when anybody 
spoke to me... . I try not to think of him, but I 
know I do” (Handicaps of Childhood, p. 179). 

In this instance the individual was cured by per- 
suading him that the behaviour of his employer was 
the real cause of his difficulties, but that it need not 
affect him any longer and that he would therefore be 
able to conquer his shyness, if he made a serious at- 
tempt to do so. 

Whenever a case of this kind is analysed, similar 
results seem to be obtained. We may therefore con- 
clude that the extreme forms of shyness and self- 
absorption are usually, if not always, due to the re- 
pression of some painful incident which should have 
been tackled at the time of its occurrence. 


OP a VII 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHARACTER 


A. The Effect of Individual Differences in :— 
(1) Disposition and general Attitude towards Life. 
(2) Will-power. 

B. The Attainment of Strength of Character. 


(1) The Importance of Organisation and (2) of the Choice 
of a Suitable Master-Sentiment. 


(3) The Limitations of Will-power. 
C. The Meaning of a “Fine” Character. 


CHARACTER may be defined as the sum total of all 
the tendencies which make for consistency in behaviour. 
When we speak of a person as lacking in character, we 
mean that he is abnormally impulsive and unreliable. 
When we do something foolish in a moment of excite- 
ment, we seek an excuse in the fact that we were not 
“ourselves” at the time. Thus the character of an 
individual is seen most clearly in his deliberate acts of 
choice. 

As would be expected, the forces which determine 


his decision in such a case are partly innate and partly 
165 


166 The Education of Behaviour 


acquired. They may be enumerated as follows: (1) 
Such sentiments, complexes and habits of choice or 
action as are involved at the moment; (2) his know- 
ledge of the subject in hand and of his own limita- 
tions; (3) his intelligence or ability to make use of 
what knowledge he has; (4) his general attitude to- 
wards life; (5) his disposition, and, in cases where 
there are obstacles to overcome, (6) his will-power. 

The effect of sentiments and complexes has been 
considered at sufficient length in the preceding pages. 
The effect of differences in intelligence and the de- 
pendence of knowledge on intelligence and interest © 
are too obvious to need discussion. We have still to 
consider differences in disposition, in the general at- 
titude towards life and in will-power. 

The disposition of a person depends on the peculiar- 
ities of his impulses. It makes him irascible, timid or 
patient, as the case may be. As will be seen in the 
course of this chapter, there is reason to believe that 
the amount of will-power of an individual depends on 
his disposition, and that it can therefore only be af- 
fected within the limits within which it is possible to 
alter the latter. 

The general attitude towards life includes such quali- 
ties as optimism, contentedness and their opposites. 
These are usually said to show the temperament of a 
person. They are no doubt in part determined by 


The Psychology of Character 167 


another quality which has an important bearing on 
the development of character, namely, the perseverative 
tendency of the individual. This is the tendency for 
ideas and images to recur in the mind when the in- 
dividual is making no conscious effort to recall them 
and when their recurrence is not due to the activity 
of some strong sentiment or complex. It is strong in 
some persons, weak in others, but there is reason to 
believe that no normal individual is entirely without 
it. Its effect on behaviour is more far-reaching than 
may appear at first sight. The individual in whom 
ideas of all kinds recur readily is likely to grow cautious 
and thoughtful, for experiences will tend to ‘“‘perse- 
verate’”’ for some time and will thus have more chance 
of becoming fixed in his conscious memory. Such a 
person will make a reliable leader when he has time 
to plan his course of action, but he may lose his head 
if he has to act on the spur of the moment. On the 
other hand, the individual who has only a slight ten- 
dency to perseverate is likely to forget past discom- 
fitures with greater ease. Hence he will tend to be 
brilliant rather than thorough, daring rather than 
wise. 


A. Individual Differences 


(1) Differences in Disposition and in the General 
Attitude towards Life —Our knowledge of the physio- 


168 The Education of Behaviour 


logical basis of disposition and temperament is of 
comparatively recent date. Dr. Head has shown that 
differences in disposition depend in part on the way in 
which and on the extent to which the greater brain 
controls certain portions of the lesser (cf. Myer’s Te-t- 
book, p. 313). 

This, however, only explains certain kinds of dif- 
ferences. By far the larger number seem to be due 
to the activity of the endocrine glands. These organs 
are very varied in size and are distributed in different 
parts of the body. Their function is to provide the 
body with substances which are essential for its health 
and development. The best known of them is per- 
haps the thyroid. This is a small mass of cellular 
tissue, situated in the neck near the “Adam’s apple.” 
If it does not function properly, the patient may be 
reduced to a state of apathy bordering on idiocy, where- 
as too great activity on its part may throw him into 
a state of excitement verging on that of a maniac. 
That it is really a secretion of this gland which can 
be responsible for all this is shown by the fact that 
patients in whom the gland does not function properly 
can, as a rule, be restored to a normal state of mind 
by means of properly regulated doses of the thyroid 
gland of sheep. 

Another pair of glands which are to-day well known 
are the adrenal or suprarenal glands (cf. p. 111). In 


The Psychology of Character 169 


man they consist of an outer portion, the cortex, 
and a central portion, the medulla. “It has been said 
with considerable truth that the secretion from the 
medulla or core makes for flight, whilst that from the 
cortex makes for fight. Certain it is that animals 
with a larger cortex are pugnacious and dangerous, 
whereas those with a narrow cortex and relatively large 
medulla are timorous and fugitive.’ 

The much-discussed “monkey glands” belong to the 
same category, but these two instances will be sufficient 
to show the extent to which endocrine glands affect 
the development of the individual. To quote once 
more from the same article: “According to the exact 
proportion in which their essences are mixed in your 
blood, you are tall or short, dark or fair, phlegmatic 
or choleric, saint or sinner’ (Leonard Williams, of. 
Cie peieGe }: 

Evidently the development and functioning of these 
glands is of first-rate importance to the educator. He 
cannot affect them directly because they are not under 
the conscious control of the individual (cf. p. 105), 
but he can aid their normal development by providing 
hygienic conditions of life. Fresh air, exercise, sleep, 
sunshine, and food rich in vitamins all have their part 
to play, the last two perhaps more than the rest. On 


*Leonard Williams, “The Constituents of the Unconscious,” 
British Journal of Psychology, Medical Section, 1922, p. 263. 


170 The Education of Behaviour 


the other hand, disease and nervous strain, more 
particularly fear and worry, may affect the inborn 
balance in such a way that the whole character is 
changed. Thus the work of endocrine glands has once 
again demonstrated the truth of the old saying, ‘mens 
sana in corpore sano.” ‘The glands and the nervous 
system are, in fact, the physiological basis of charac- 
ter. If they are not in health, much of our educational 
effort is necessarily wasted. 

(2) Differences in Will-power.—Will-power may 
be defined as the power to strengthen a weak motive 
so as to make it predominate over its rival. If I and 
P stand for conflicting motives, of which I is the 
weaker, and E stands for the effort needed to make I 
predominate, then the relation between I, E and P can 
be represented symbolically as follows :— 

I per se<P; I + E>P (James, Text-book of 
Psychology, p. 444). 

It has been suggested by several writers that the 
effort E comes from the self as a whole, and that the 
power to make this effort is fundamental to any con- 
sciousness of a “me’’ as an independent individual. _ 

Two important investigations into the psychology 
of will-power should be studied in this connection. 
These are those of (a) Dr. Ach and (0) Drs. Michotte 
and Prum. 

(a) The purpose of Dr. Ach’s experiment was to 


The Psychology of Character 171 


study what goes on within us when we try to act on 
a decision which involves the conquest of a contrary 
tendency, such as a strong impulse or a well-established 
habit. He began by giving his subjects pairs of non- 
rhyming syllables to memorise, until strong associa- 
tions had been formed between the members of each 
pair. He then showed them the first of each pair 
separately and asked them to give a rhyme to each 
instead of giving the syllable associated with it. Thus 
the process was in every way similar to that gone 
through by a person who has made up his mind to 
break a certain habit by forming another definite habit 
and has now to act on his decision. By making the 
associations stronger in some cases than in others, 
Dr. Ach was, moreover, able to distinguish between the 
task of opposing a strong, and that of opposing a 
weak, tendency. (In case it should be suggested that 
the experiment did not produce a “real” obstacle to 
overcome, it may be well to state that success and 
failure were found to produce definite feelings of 
pleasure and unpleasure respectively. Moreover, each 
was accompanied by expressive movements, such as 
smiling, flushing, on the one hand, stamping and excla- 
mations of anger on the other.) For a full discussion 
of the results, the reader must be referred to Dr. Ach’s 
bock, Willensakt und Temperament. For the present 
purpose, only the following points need to be noted :-— 


172 The Education of Behaviour 


(1) When the opposition was strong the introspec- 
tions showed :— 

(a) Feelings of strain, tension, etc. © 

(b) A definite consciousness of “I will, I really 
wish,” in the period immediately preced- 
ing the act. 

(c) A characteristic strengthening of the de- 
termination, which seemed to be only 
possible within certain limits, so that the 
subject failed, much to his own annoy- 
ance, when the opposition was too 
strong. 

(2) When the opposition was weak :— 

(a) All feelings of strain disappeared, and 

(b) The personal element dropped out and 
there was, instead, merely the conscious- 
ness of “this must or shall be done.” 

Hence it would seem that we have a fund of extra 
energy on which we can draw when we are trying to 
overcome resistance, but that there are definite limits 
to the amount which we can use in this way at a given 
moment. 

(b) The experiment of Drs. Michotte and Prum 
was intended to study the psychology of that other act 
in which we are conscious of an effort of will, the 
act of choice. In this case, two numbers were pre- 
sented to the subject which he might add or subtract, 


The Psychology of Character 173 


but whichever he chose he had to have a “serious 
reason” for his choice. Here again it is impossible 
to give more than the main result of the experiment. 
This is, that the subjects had in this case a conscious- 
ness of personally turning towards one of the alterna- 
tives, a “consciousness of action” as the experimenters 
called it. This “consciousness of action’? was felt to 
be something quite different from the feelings of strain, 
etc., which these subjects also experienced in cases of 
difficulty. Like the “I really wish’ of Dr. Ach’s 
subjects, it seems to suggest that “the self’’ is involved 
in a peculiarly intimate way whenever true acts of will 
are performed. 

The form in which we become conscious of this 
appeal to the self was studied by Boyd Barrett in the 
course of the experiment which was described at some 
length in Chapter V. The introspections obtained by 
him in cases in which choice was difficult, showed that 
we either act on impulse (in which case the result is 
not a “willed” choice in our sense of the word) or 
appeal to a general principle, such as “Take the more 
familiar.”’ In other words, true acts of choice in which 
decision is difficult are characterised by an appeal to 
an idea which derives its energy more or less directly 
from the self-regarding sentiment. 

The “characteristic strengthening of the determina- 
tion” of Ach, the “consciousness of action” of Mi- 


174 The Education of Behaviour 


chotte and Prum, the “appeal to a general principle” 
of Boyd Barrett, all therefore point to the same con- 
clusion, namely, that our will-power, 1.e. the energy 
that makes it possible for us to overcome resistance 
within ourselves, is in some way derived from our 
self-regarding sentiment. Dr. McDougall puts it thus: 
“We may, then, define volition as the supporting or 
re-enforcing of a desire or conation (7. e. attempt to 
act) by the co-operation of an impulse excited within 
the system of the self-regarding sentiment” (Social 
Psychology, p. 249). | 


B. The Attainment of Strength of Character 


(1) Organisation of Sentiments——Since character 
is that which makes for consistency in behaviour, a 
person cannot be said to have a character at all until 
he has learnt to be somewhat consistent in his actions: 
thus a child cannot be said to have a character in any 
useful sense of the word until he has acquired at least 
one fixed sentiment, such as love for his mother. As 
his sentiments develop, his desires tend to become more 
permanent, and as his consciousness of his own in- 
dividuality grows in clearness, he begins to exert his 
native will-power in service of these desires. But this 
is not sufficient to ensure ultimate strength of charac- 
ter, for it does not prevent the co-existence of incom- 
patible sentiments, such as love of truth and love of 


The Psychology of Character 175 


popularity. The really “strong” man is the man who 
has a definite aim in life and who cares about this 
aim sufficiently to abstain from gratifying chance 
desires which would involve him in activities that are 
not in accordance with it. Needless to say, fine will- 
power, though essential, is not sufficient. The person 
who wishes to acquire a strong character must also 
make up his mind clearly what he wants most of all 
and which, of any two alternatives, he wants more 
than the other. In other words, he must organise his 
sentiments in relation to some clearly-defined master- 
sentiment, otherwise his very strength of will may 
lead him into inconsistencies owing to the temporary 
predominance of some sentiment which is incompatible 
with his general scheme of life. 

In order to attain strength of character with the 
minimum of effort, it is well to remember that we are 
so constituted that every act lays the foundation for 
a habit, every train of thought for an association, and 
that it depends entirely on the way in which we use 
this quality of the nervous system whether it proves 
a help or a hindrance in the attainment of the end. To 
quote from Mr. Shand (Foundations of Character, 
p. 70), “The laws of association tend to disorganise 
all systems of character, so far as they introduce into 
them constituents which are useless or harmful, and 
lead to the formation of bad habits; but they also sub- 


176 The Education of Behaviour 


serve them by strengthening serviceable connections, 
which lead to the formation of good habits. The law 
of organisation, on its side, tends to exclude from 
these systems all constituents that owe their presence 
there to the action of association alone.” 

(2) The Choice of the Master Sentiment.—Quite 
as important as the organisation of the sentiments, is 
the choice of the aim. The whole structure is liable 
to fall to pieces if the “master sentiment” is destroyed. 
It is, therefore, vital that this should be one which is 
not at the mercy of every passing event. To ensure 
this, an attempt should be made to formulate as “gen- 
eral’ an aim as possible. The desire “‘to be successful” 
is more likely to make for strength than the desire “‘to 
be successful in a particular venture,” and “‘to be use- 
ful” has a greater element of permanence in it than “to 
be useful to a particular person’; since the failure of 
the venture or the death of the person may make the 
individual with the particularised aim lose all interest 
in life, whereas a similar check will leave the person with 
the more generalised aim with plenty of other things 
which are worth doing. Of course, even the person 
with a highly generalised aim may give up his efforts 
in despair if he meets with failure after failure. How 
soon this limit is reached in a particular case would 
seem to depend on the native pugnacity or “will-power”’ 
of the individual, on his general attitude towards life, — 


The Psychology of Character 177 


and on the extent to which his master-ideal has 
become incorporated in his self-regarding sentiment. 

(3) The Limitations of Will-power.—One further 
point has to be considered in this connection, that is 
the difficulty which is sometimes experienced when it 
becomes necessary to act in accordance with a care- 
fully considered resolution. This is a common phe- 
nomenon. It is perhaps most readily understood by 
comparing the act of choice with the lifting of a 
weight by a number of ropes, each pulling it in a dif- 
ferent direction with a different amount of pull. In 
such a case one of three things may happen: usually 
the weight will move in a direction different from that 
of any of the ropes to which it is tied (a direction 
which represents, as it were, a compromise between 
their separate effects), but it may also move in the 
direction of one of the ropes, or it may not move at 
all. Even if it happens to move in the direction of 
one of the ropes, the effect of the others is not there- 
by lost, for they will either increase or decrease the 
rate of movement of the weight according to the 
amount and the direction of the pull on them. Each 
of these alternatives may occur in an act of choice. 
The ropes fixed in direction may be taken to repre- 
sent motives, the pull on them the driving force behind 
the motives, or motive force, as it is usually called, 
and the weight the problem which has to be solved. 


178 The Education of Behaviour 


In the act of choice compromise is not always possible 
and selection of one course of action at the expense of 
the other alternative (7. e. movement along one of the 
ropes) is therefore more frequent, but here, too, the 
other desires play their part by affecting the ease with 
which the choice is made. 

Moreover, if we tie only one rope to a weight and 
pull that, we get the effect of the pull on that rope 
separately, but if we now add another, we can only 
observe the way its pull affects the result obtained by 
the first. We have to resort to calculation, if we wish 
to decide what the effect of the second would have 
been by itself without actually removing the first. 
Similarly, when we have two alternative lines of 
action at our disposal, we do not, as a rule, become 
aware of the absolute value of the second during the 
process of choice; we only judge it as better or worse 
than the first. But the absolute value of the alternative 
we have selected has an uncomfortable way of be- 
coming conscious when we have to express a decision 
in action. At times we may even fail in the attempt, 
for the energy which was sufficient to make us choose 
one of two alternatives when we were judging it in 
relation to the other, may be unequal to the strain 
when we are faced with the full amount of un- 
pleasure it involves at the moment of action.1 The 

*Cf. Table II and Boyd Barrett, op. cit., Chapter X. 


The Psychology of Character 179 


extent to which a person is able to sacrifice immediate 
pleasure under such conditions is perhaps the best 
indication of his strength of character. 


C. The Meaning of a “Fine” Character 


In order to complete this sketch of the psycho- 
logy of character, it is necessary to consider what is 
involved in a “fine” character. Clearly strength is one 
of its constituents, but strength alone is not sufficient. 
We judge the quality of a person’s character at least 
as much by the nature of his master sentiment as by 
the consistency of his behaviour; in fact, of the two, 
many of us are more inclined to forgive weakness 
than what we consider a “poor” aim in life. By com- 
mon consent a really fine man must have plenty of 
“strength of mind’ and he must use his powers in 
service of a principle which we admire. Perhaps one 
other qualification should be added for members of a 
community such as ours, that is, a clear realisation 
of the personal prejudices for which he has to make 
allowance in all his decisions. As has been shown 
above, this means that he must, at least, realise that 
sentiments and complexes influence judgment at every 
turn. Ideally, he should also be aware of the most 
important of his complexes, so that he can allow for 
them in cases in which they are likely to affect his 
verdict. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE TRAINING OF CHARACTER 


A. “Lawful” and “Lawless” Obstacles. 
(1) Lessons Taught by “Lawful” Obstacles. 
(2) The Artificial Manipulation of the Environment. 
(3) Approval and Disapprovat as “Tawful” Obstacles. 


B. Pleasure and Unpleasure as Incentives to Right Behaviour. 
C. Intention and Execution. 


D. The Part Played by Suggestion. 
(1) Direct versus Indirect Suggestion. 
(2) Difficulties in the Use of Direct Suggestion. 


E. Problems Connected with Self-Government at School. 


A. “Lawful” and “Lawless” Obstacles 


One of the first discoveries a child makes when he 
is beginning to try his powers on his little world, is 
that he has to reckon with obstacles of two different 
kinds—those that seem to be no one’s fault, and those 
that seem to have been placed in his way by some one 


else, the “lawful” and the “lawless” as we may call 
180 


The Training of Character 181 


them.1 He soon discovers that it is useless to get angry 
about lawful obstacles. But the “lawless” are on a 
different footing. They have been put in his way 
by some one else and it just depends on his attitude 
towards that some one else, whether he takes them in 
good part or resents them as an unwarranted inter- 
ference with his freedom of action. 

(1) Lessons Taught by “Lawful” Obstacles—At 
first the classification into “lawful” and “lawless” is 
necessarily very crude. The tiny child who knocks 
himself against a table hits that table in his anger, 
for he has yet to learn that the table cannot move out 
of his way. Similarly he eats the bright red berry 
without even wondering whether it may harm him. 
He must have time and experience to find out the 
forces which govern his little universe. 

Sooner or later he learns that he cannot transgress 
the laws of his own nature without paying the penalty, 
thus he cannot sit about in damp clothes without 
catching a cold. As his experience increases, he finds 
with our aid that all that surrounds him, all the “not 
me” as it were, is also governed by laws that cannot 
be infringed without paying the penalty. Thus his 

*The “law” in question may be a law of unconscious nature 
or of human nature, or it may be a mere convention. Lawful 
is to be taken to mean “in obedience to some fixed law,” what- 


ever the origin of that law, and “lawless” as the opposite of 
“lawful.” 


182 The Education of Behaviour 


building-blocks refuse to stand in certain positions 
however often he tries; his seedlings die if he does 
not give them any water; his companions do not like 
him if he is too quarrelsome, etc., etc. In every such 
case the child begins by assuming that the undesired 
act was done on purpose to annoy him, just as the 
savage thinks that some evil spirit must have thrown 
down the stone which fell from the cliff and hurt him. 
Our knowledge of what is and what is not due to 
“law” is in fact the result of centuries of reflection 
on experience, and the child would acquire little or none 
of it without guidance from his elders. 

Whenever a lesson can be learnt through direct 
experience, without undue risk to the learner, it is a 
mistake to try to save the child from the consequences 
of his acts, and this for three reasons: (1) because 
there is nothing so convincing as personal experience, 
(2) because every such interference is liable to rouse 
resentment, and hence to defeat its own end, and (3) 
because it is essential for every one to learn the difficult 
art of interpreting his own experience correctly and it 
is therefore advisable to give a child every opportunity 
of acquiring the necessary skill. There are, however, 
many cases in which the “lawful” consequences are 
too ill-defined or too distant to appeal to a child. Thus 
it would, for instance, be very unfair to a child to allow 
him to form a habit, the undesirability of which he will 


The Training of Character 183 


only be able to appreciate in years to come. In such 
cases we must, therefore, supplement the teaching 
of Nature and Man by means of artificial stimuli 
which are suited to the stage of development of the 
child. 

(2) The Artificial Mampulation of the Environ- 
ment.—This can sometimes be done by providing an 
artificial environment which the pupil assumes to be 
“natural,’ and which puts him into a position in 
which he is able to learn from his own experience. 
We can, for instance, teach an only child that selfish- 
ness is undesirable by providing him with suitable 
companions, and we can stimulate an adolescent to 
greater effort by putting the right kind of biography 
in his way. So long as the child does not know why 
he has been provided with companions, and so long as 
the youth thinks that it is “chance” that he has come 
across the book, the desired lesson will seem to each a 
discovery of his own, and his self-regard will there- 
fore urge him to turn it to good account. 

When such manipulation of the environment is im- 
possible, we have to resort to methods in which the 
personal element is frankly avowed, that is, to expres- 
sions of approval or disapproval or to concrete rewards 
and punishments, The younger the child, the less will 
he be able to draw the right conclusions from his ex- 
perience, and the more often will it be necessary to 


184 The Education of Behaviour 


resort to personal pressure. It should, however, be 
borne in mind that punishments and rewards, as well 
as praise and blame, are only temporary expedients, 
and are by no means ideal incentives to right behaviour. 
Punishments and rewards appeal primarily to the 
child’s love of personal comfort and are therefore likely 
to make him selfish and self-seeking, if used at all 
freely. Indiscriminate love of approval is not much 
better, for the desire to stand well with every one is 
not likely to produce a very valuable member of the 
community. Ultimately, it is the man’s ideals, not 
the opinion of his momentary environment, that should 
decide his line of action. As Dr. McDougall puts it, 
“the highest form of behaviour is that in which con- 
duct is regulated by an ideal of conduct that enables a 
man to act in the way that seems to him right, regard- 
less of the praise or blame of his immediate social en- 
vironment” (op. cit., p. 181). 

Such an attitude towards the problems of life is 
clearly impossible until the individual has acquired a 
strong, well-organised character. In the process of 
attaining this he has to pass through certain prelimi- 
nary stages, which Dr. McDougall enumerates as fol- 
lows :-— 

(1) The stage of purely impulsive behaviour, in 
which the feeling tone which accompanies the actual 
experience is the only effective teacher. 


The Training of Character 185 


(2) The stage in which conduct is influenced by the 
expectation of rewards and punishments. 

(3) The stage in which the expectation of praise 
and blame is sufficient. 

The first of these stages is passed through during 
early infancy. A baby repeats pleasurable and avoids 
painful acts as far as he can, but threats of punish- 
ment and promises of rewards mean nothing to him. 
If a child is in danger of acquiring an undesirable 
habit at this stage, he can therefore only be checked 
by associating the act in question with physical pain, 
that is to say, by slapping him each time he does it; 
then he will gradually give it up on account of its 
unpleasant results. But once a child can understand 
what we say, and has realised himself, however 
vaguely, as a little individual with wants of his own, 
it becomes possible to control his behaviour to some 
extent by the threat of punishment or the promise of 
reward, and as soon as he has become sufficiently 
sensitive to the opinion of others, it is possible to dis- 
card these in their turn and to rely more and more 
completely on his love of approval. 

Arbitrary rewards and punishments probably become 
unnecessary at a much earlier age than is generally 
realised, for quite little children seem to be able to 
interpret them as expressions of opinion. Even a child 
of eighteen months will often take a fall on the hard 


1836 The Education of Behaviour 


ground quite bravely, and yet scream at the top of his 
voice if his mother slaps him lightly but in anger. 
What little children need is a clear expression of our 
approval or disapproval, but words and manner are 
quite sufficient as soon as they are able to understand 
what we say. I have known a little girl of three and a 
half years stop in the midst of her play to ask: “I 
am not being naughty, am I?” when the adult who 
was playing with her, gave rather an impatient answer 
to one of her many questions. 

The way in which an arbitrary punishment that is 
felt to be arbitrary is interpreted by a child may be 
seen from the following case of a very passionate girl 
of twelve. This child was considered ‘almost un- 
manageable” at school, although all kinds of punish- 
ments had been tried, even the use of the cane did 
not make the least impression. Yet the mother, who 
undoubtedly exerted an excellent influence over her, 
assured me that she could only manage the girl by 
“thrashing” her every time she was in one of her 
bad moods. For the onlooker it was easy to see why 
the mother succeeded where the school failed. The 
child worshipped her mother, she hated the school and 
despised her form mistress. The “thrashing” was a 
thing to be feared because it was an expression of 
extreme disapproval on the part of a person whose 
good opinion she valued very highly. But at school 


The Training of Character 187 


there was no such check on her actions; to disturb the 
work of the whole class and make the teacher lose her 
temper appealed to her love of power; the pleasure she 
derived from it was well worth the loss of play-time or 
an occasional caning. 

If any one imagines that this is an exceptional case 
he should work for a while at a children’s club and 
listen to the conversation. He will find that children 
invariably have most respect for the teacher who can 
manage his class without resorting to punishments and 
rewards, and that they interpret a system of frequent 
punishments as a sign of weakness on the part of the 
teacher. In short, rewards and punishments that are 
felt to be arbitrary are only effective in so far as they 
are taken to be expressions of opinion on the part of 
some one whom the child already respects. They are 
therefore quite unnecessary with normal children of 
school age, who have not been neglected too hopelessly 
at home. Even the little girl to whom reference has 
just been made managed to behave herself quite pass- 
ably during the last three months of the school year 
at the request of some one whom she wished to think 
well of her, although no stimulus other than her desire 
for approval was used, and in spite of the fact that 
she never got over her intense dislike for her form mis- 
tress—not a mean achievement for a passionate girl of 
twelve. 


188 The Education of Behaviour 


It may be well to add that punishment may fail 
signally when the victim is an adolescent, even if the 
person who inflicts it is some one whom he greatly ad- 
mires, Girls particularly may learn to take pleasure 
in being hurt by those whom they love, if that is the 
only way in which they can attract sufficient attention, 
and once they have discovered this form of self-grati- 
fication they will often feel impelled to make themselves 
a nuisance to their heroes. At such times they may 
not even know why they are misbehaving, for their 
self-regard will make it impossible for them to become 
conscious of the true cause. 

(3) Approval and Disapproval as “Lawful” 
Obstacles—Expressions of approval and disapproval 
are on a different footing from concrete rewards and 
punishments. They are the normal signs of group 
opinion, and as such, perfectly “lawful” in the sense 
defined. If the group decides against the behaviour 
of an individual, he can either bow to its decision or 
ignore it, but he must be prepared to find himself ostra- 
cised if he dares to follow his own judgment in a matter 
of importance. The extent to which he is likely to mind 
this will depend on circumstances. If revolt against the 
opinion of his own group opens the membership of 
other groups to him, gregariousness and self-regard 
will both receive satisfaction. Yet the struggle may be 
severe enough, for he may know that his act is likely to 


The Training of Character 189 


weaken or break highly valued personal ties, such as 
friendships. If he does not know of any group which 
would approve of his attitude, he has nothing to fall 
back upon except self-regard. Normally, the fear of 
loneliness is so strong that it is impossible for any one 
to maintain his position under these circumstances, but 
he can sometimes escape from his dilemma by inventing 
an imaginary group to which he would belong if it ex- 
isted. Needless to say, a revolt of this nature is usually 
the act of a ripe mind, it only occurs in childhood and 
adolescence if the individual finds it impossible to 
satisfy the requirements of his environment. 

Thus praise and blame can be made to play an im- 
portant part in the training of character. It should, 
however, be borne in mind that both must be used 
with discrimination to be effective. The true function 
of an appeal to love of approval is to strengthen a 
motive which is too weak to issue in action without 
such help. It must therefore be strong enough to pro- 
duce this effect. On the other hand, we must not 
give more praise or blame than the child feels he has 
earned, for both quickly lose their effect if administered 
too freely. Generally speaking, an act of choice soon 
becomes habitual under suitable conditions, but it 
should be remembered that a habit is always specialised, 
and that a small change in environment is often suf- 
ficient to destroy it. There is on record a case of a girl 


190 The Education of Behaviour 


who managed to be at school punctually for a whole 
year, and who yet relapsed into her old habits of un- 
punctuality as soon as she was removed from the in- 
fluence of the form mistress for whose sake she had 
made the effort. This girl was obviously quite indif- 
ferent about punctuality as such and her temporary 
improvement was entirely due to her desire to please 
her form mistress. She was, therefore, in this respect, 
wholly at the mercy of her environment. There is 
thus a distinct element of danger in relying too much 
on love of approval as an instrument in the training 
of character. 

This does not mean, of course, that we should try 
to abstain from expressions of praise and blame. It 
means rather that we should grade them in accordance 
with the needs of our pupils. The younger the child, 
the more freely must they be used, but it is a mistake 
to resort to them in a question in which he is himself 
able to appreciate what is right and what is wrong. 
If the environment is favourable, the child of ten or 
eleven has usually begun to realise that there are certain 
things which he cannot do without hurting his self- 
respect. As soon as this stage has been reached, we 
should therefore appeal to his pride rather than to his 
love of approval. This will have two advantages: it 
will help him to enter on the final stage of conduct, 
and it will render our expressions of approval and 


The Training of Character 191 


disapproval all the more effective just because they will 
not have to be used so often. 


B. The Relative Value of Pleasure and Unpleasure 
as Incentives to Right Behaviour 


The next point which we have to discuss is whether 
pleasurable or unpleasurable stimuli are on the whole 
more effective in the training of character. 

In the case of “natural” punishments and rewards 
one is probably as good as the other, simply because 
each is recognised to be the “natural” outcome of a 
definite act. The boy who has once made himself 
thoroughly ill by eating too many green gooseberries 
will be more careful in the future, and the boy who 
succeeds in solving a problem after a long struggle 
has all the reward he needs in the pleasure success 
brings with it. But, as stated above, praise and blame 
are used when the result of an action is not sufficiently 
obvious to serve as a guide for behaviour. Their 
purpose is, in fact, to turn the weaker motive into 
the stronger. If we use fear of disapproval, we are 
weakening the stronger motive; if we take the opposite 
course, we are strengthening the weaker one. Ob- 
viously the end can be attained in either way. The 
question is, whether there is anything to choose be- 
tween them, and if so, which is the more effective. 

In order to answer this question we have to turn to 


192 The Education of Behaviour 


experiments that have been conducted to determine the 
physiological changes which accompany changes in 
feeling tone. Perhaps the most striking of these is one 
which measures the effect of pleasure, and unpleasure 
upon already contracted muscles. This may be done 
by means of a spring balance. The subject is blind- 
folded to avoid complications introduced by his own 
observation of his record, a spring balance is hung up 
at some convenient distance from him and he is then 
told to pull his hardest for, say, a minute. Under 
ordinary conditions his record shows a regular de- 
crease, so that it can be represented by an almost 
unbroken, obliquely descending line. If the subject is 
now given a pleasant stimulus (say a little raspberry 
juice) whilst he is in the act of pulling, there is a 
momentary drop, followed by a significant rise in his 
record, which then again falls gradually, but main- 
tains throughout a higher level than before. If a very 
unpleasant stimulus is given (say quinine) there is, 
on the contrary, a decided fall in the record, followed 
by a gradual fall, so that the general level maintained 
is lower than under ordinary conditions. It would 
appear from this that a pleasant stimulus increases the 
amount of energy at the disposal of the subject, where- 
as an unpleasant stimulus decreases it. The same con- 
clusion is suggested by certain other experiments. 
Moreover, everyday experience points to the same 


The Training of Character 193 


conciusion : when we are happy, we usually move about, 
talk, sing, etc., when we are unhappy we tend to mope, 
without enough energy or interest in things to want to 
do anything. The way in which a pleasant surprise 
seems to renew our energy, however tired we were 
beforehand, is also worth noting in this connection. 
Similarly, appreciation from the right quarter acts as 
a spur to further effort, whereas lack of it may make 
one give up the struggle in disgust. (It is true that an 
unpleasant experience which rouses our “‘dis’’pleasure 
increases our activity by stimulating our pugnacity. 
This more complex state of mind was not tested by the 
experiments under discussion, nor does it affect our 
present problem.) 

We may, then, assume that pleasure in general in- 
creases the amount of vital energy at our disposal, 
whereas unpleasure decreases it. Hence the expression 
of disapproval is effective, if we merely wish to check 
the activity of an individual; but a pleasure stimulus is 
the better, if we wish to induce him to adopt a particu- 
lar line of action. As was shown in Chapter VI, the 
quickest way to break an undesirable habit is to form 
another in its stead. Since our business in this con- 
nection is usually that of helping our pupil to form 
useful habits of choice, it follows that we should em- 
phasise the pleasure that will accompany right choice 
rather than the unpleasure that will result from wrong 


194 The Education of Behaviour 


choice. Thus, “I shall be so pieased, if you remember 
this,” is more likely to be successful than “I shall be 


9 


very angry, if you forget this,” whenever the act that 
has to be “remembered” involves the conquest of some 


relatively strong habit or sentiment. 


C. Intention versus Erecution 


In this connection it is important to bear in mind 
that it is not necessarily the child’s fault when he 
does “forget.” Even Ach’s subjects found it im- 
possible to give a rhyme to a syllable when its asso- 
ciation with a non-rhyming syllable exceeded a certain 
strength. Yet these were adults with a well-developed 
self-regarding sentiment and they were working under 
conditions in which they might be expected to know 
with some exactness the strength of the contrary ten- 
dency they had to overcome. The child who promises 
faithfully “never to forget again,” is often dealing with 
desires which he does not understand himself. To any 
one who has no knowledge of psychology, it may seem 
no more difficult to remember not to suck the thumb 
than not to give the associated syllable. Modern ana- 
lytical psychology has, however, taught us that thumb- 
sucking is anything but a meaningless habit, that it is, 
on the contrary, a symbolical expression of the re- 
pressed desire to return to the care-free life of infancy, 
and that this expression is allowed free play by the 


The Training of Character 195 


growing self-regard of the child just because it seems 
meaningless. It is therefore an outlet for repressed vital 
energy, and as such far more difficult to conquer than 
a habit that has been acquired consciously. In cases 
of this kind a child has no idea what his promise “‘not 
to do it again” involves, and failure is undoubtedly 
quite as often due to lack of ability as to lack of good- 
will. 

Whether such failure is helpful, probably depends 
in part on the character of the person and in part on 
the kind of tendency that has to be overcome. Ach 
found that failure produced anger, which set free more 
energy for the next attempt; whereas success, when 
achieved with sufficient difficulty, produced a conscious- 
ness of power which helped to strengthen future acts 
in so far as it was reproduced on the next occasion. 
Both were therefore found to be helpful. There is, 
however, no reason to suppose that this would invari- 
ably be the case. Suppose a person A who dislikes 
paying calls makes up his mind that he must without 
fail call on certain people to-morrow. ‘To-morrow 
comes and a friend suggests that it 1s an ideal day for 
a long tramp. <A “forgets” all about the call and 
spends an enjoyable afternoon on the hills. Later in 
the day he will probably “remember” the intended call, 
but the anger with himself for his forgetfulness will 
be considerably modified by his pleasure at having 


196 The Education of Behaviour 


escaped what is to him an unpleasant ordeal. He may, 
on the other hand, ‘‘remember”’ his intentions and pay 
his call. Then one of two things may happen: he may 
find that it is, after all, not so unpleasant an experience, 
or he may decide that it was up to his worst expecta- 
tions. The one will encourage him to be more regular 
in his social duties in future, the other will make him 
vow never to waste another afternoon in that way. 
This is more in accordance with the majority of the 
difficulties that children have to face, because it is an 
instance in which both success and failure to “remem- 
ber” produce satisfaction of a more or less conscious 
desire; whereas Ach’s subjects derived nothing but un- 
pleasure from failure. Hence it is, as a rule, safer 
to rely on the pleasure that accompanies hard-won 
success than on the anger that is produced by failure. 
In other words, though it is good for the development 
of the child to set him high standards, it is generally 
wiser to grade one’s demands in such a way as to 
avoid failure as far as possible. 


D. The Part Played by Suggestion 


So long as a child depends on his momentary en- 
vironment for his standards of conduct, he cannot be 
said to be “free” in any useful sense of the word, for 
the truly “free” individual is one who is able to “act 
in a way which seems to him right, regardless of the 


The Training of Character 197 


praise or blame of his immediate environment.’ Hence 
the “freedom” of an individual depends on the strength 
of his character. As we saw in the last chapter, this 
in turn depends partly on the extent to which he has 
succeeded in organising his sentiments and complexes 
round some master sentiment or ideal, and partly on 
the extent to which he has learnt to let himself be 
guided by his general principles and ideals when he 
finds it difficult to decide what he ought to do. It is, 
therefore, important to know as much as possible about 
the growth of ideals and general principles. 

When we try to trace one of these back to its begin- 
nings, we find that it owes its existence either to the 
influence of some definite individual or to the pressure 
of group opinion, that is to say, either to prestige sug- 
gestion or to mass suggestion. Whatever its origin, 
it will, however, have to be incorporated in the self- 
regarding sentiment to acquire that element of perma- 
nence which is characteristic of ideals and general 
principles, for the life of a desire remains at the mercy 
of the immediate environment so long as it does not 
derive at least part of its energy from that sentiment. 

In order to see what conditions favour incorpora- 
tion in the self-regarding sentiment, we shall have to 
study suggestion and suggestibility in more detail. 

(1) Direct versus Indirect Suggestion—We have 
already seen that the suggestibility of an individual 


198 The Education of Behaviour 


may be due to his respect for the person who makes 
the suggestion, or to the consciousness that he is dealing 
with group opinion. We have now to consider how 
the force of a suggestion is affected by the way in 
which it is given. I may, for instance, persuade or 
force a child to do a task which he considers useless 
and distasteful, or I may, on the other hand, arrange 
things in such a way that he thinks he would like to 
tackle that same task. In the former case I am said 
to be using “direct’’ prestige suggestion, in the latter 
“indirect” prestige suggestion. Similarly, mass sug- 
gestion may be direct or indirect. The newcomer who 
is put into the class of a popular teacher, may find 
that his attempts to disturb his neighbours are merely 
ignored by the others. If he takes this as a hint that 
he had better behave himself, he is acting on “indirect 
mass suggestion,” if he waits until the others tell him 
not to make himself a nuisance, he is acting on “direct 
mass suggestion.” 

Clearly the success of indirect suggestion depends on 
the susceptibility of the individual to the opinion of 
others, that is to say, on the strength of his love of 
approbation and on his intelligence. If his love of 
approbation is weak, he will not be interested in the 
opinion of others, and will therefore experience no 
desire to conform to them. If his intelligence is poor, 
he will tend to draw incorrect inferences from what 


The Training of Character 199 


goes on around him, and will therefore be unable to 
learn from experience. On the other hand, indirect 
suggestion, if successful, has the advantage that it 
leaves the individual under the impression that he has 
discovered the advisability of a certain line of action 
by his own unaided efforts, with the result that his self- 
regard makes him anxious to act in accordance with 
his discovery. In other words, the new principle of 
action will, from the beginning, derive its energy from 
the self-regarding sentiment, and its permanence will 
therefore not depend on the permanence of the in- 
fluence of this or that individual, or on the pressure 
exerted by this or that environment. 

The advantage of direct suggestion is that*there is 
less risk of misunderstanding. It is, however, not ad- 
visable to use it too freely in connection with matters 
which affect the self-regard of a pupil, because every 
direct suggestion impresses on him that we consider 
him our inferior, with the result that it challenges the 
opposition of the strong-willed and hinders the de- 
velopment of self-reliance in the weak-willed. More- 
over, care must be taken not to resort to it unless 
success is assured, for every failure lessens the feeling 
of inferiority on the part of the child, and thus makes 
it more difficult to exact obedience on a future oc- 
casion, 

(2) Difficulties in the Use of Direct Suggestion,— 


200 The Education of Behaviour 


Skill in the use of direct suggestion can only be ac- 
quired through practice. The following hints may none 
the less prove useful. As will be seen, they are merely 
different methods of maintaining the feeling of in- 
feriority on the part of the child. 

(1) The suggestion must be given in a tone and 
manner that command respect. 

(2) It is most likely to succeed when introduced 
so as to produce a slight shock or surprise; thus the 
art of keeping a lazy pupil at work consists partly in 
having a large number of devices at one’s disposal. 

(3) It must not be so contrary to the pupil’s train- 
ing or natural bent that it rouses his self-assertion or 
criticism; thus a boy with good home training will 
refuse to tell tales of another and will merely lose 
respect for the teacher who is foolish enough to de- 
mand such a thing. 

(4) It must not contradict facts which the pupil 
knows or thinks he knows. In such a case, the only 
thing to do is to discuss the matter with him on equal 
terms. 

Even if a direct suggestion produces the desired re- 
sult, it must not be imagined that the amount of 
improvement that is produced can be taken as a measure 
of the strength of the new ideal which is being de- 
veloped. This was brought out clearly in an experi- 
ment conducted by the writer for the purpose of 


The Training of Character 201 


investigating the conditions under which direct sug- 
gestion was likely to produce permanent results in the 
case of children aged twelve to fourteen. In this ex- 
periment the teachers of a number of classes undertook 
to stimulate in their pupils the desire to become more 
observant in regard to the everyday things of life. 
Two sets of schools were used for this purpose. One 
set consisted of primary schools. In these definite 
practices in concentration of attention were given for 
fifteen minutes a day on four days of every week 
throughout a training period of twelve weeks and the 
children were told that those lessons were intended 
to help them to learn more about the things around 
them. The other set of schools consisted of second- 
ary schools. In these the teachers were given no arti- 
ficial aid of this kind and had therefore to rely on 
their personal influence alone; moreover, the training 
only lasted nine weeks instead of twelve. In both cases 
the children were tested at the beginning and at the 
end of the training period, and the practice effects of 
the tests as such were eliminated by comparing the im- 
provement in these groups with that in other groups 
which had the same average marks in the first test, 
but were taken from schools in which no special train- 
ing of this kind was being given. 

The results which were obtained in this way showed 
that the secondary schools had derived far greater 


202 The Education of Behaviour 


immediate benefit from the training. Intervals of nine 
weeks and sixteen weeks respectively were now allowed 
to elapse during which the teachers evinced no interest 
in their pupils’ knowledge of everyday things. At the 
end of this second period a final test was given. It was 
then found that the secondary school children had lost 
almost all the benefit derived from the training, where- 
as the others had lost very little, so that the training had 
evidently been more successful in the group which 
showed less immediate improvement.1 (This result 
must not be taken to indicate in any way the length of 
training required to produce a permanent improve- 
ment, because: (1) the ideal was inculcated by dif- 
ferent methods in the two groups, and (2) the groups 
represented schools of different types. ) 

Whether a direct suggestion will take root in a 
particular case, and if so how quickly, it is impossible 
to foretell without far more knowledge than is usually 
at our disposal. Some of the factors involved have 
been already discussed at some length. These are: the 
amount of influence the teacher has over the pupil, 
the strength of contrary tendencies within the pupil, 
and the extent to which his self-regarding sentiment is 
developed. Clearly his general environment must also 
play an important part in the incorporation of the new 


*A full description of this experiment will be found in the 
British Journal of Psychology, Vol, IX., Pt. I, 


The Training of Character 203 


principle in the self-regarding sentiment, but we have 
at present too little knowledge in regard to the condi- 
tions which are favourable to this process to be able to 
say anything definite about it. Since so little is known, 
it may, however, be worth while to state a result which 
was obtained in the experiment just described. It is 
this: of the four schools that made up the group of 
primary schools, one alone failed to show any gain in 
the final test, although it had improved at about the 
same rate as the others during the period of training. 
There seemed to be nothing in the experimental con- 
ditions to account for its behaviour, but it so happened 
that this school was the only one of the four in which 
the children were promoted at the end of the term 
during which the training had been given. They were, 
moreover, not merely moved up in a body, but were dis- 
tributed among a number of different classes. Since 
this was apparently the only way in which the condi- 
tions in this school differed from those in the others, 
we are led to conclude that the dispersal into different 
classes was responsible for the absence of permanent 
improvement. This would have a twofold effect: it 
would stimulate the development of new interests, and 
it would interfere with the working of mass sugges- 
tion. Hence a direct suggestion given to a whole class 
seems more likely to produce permanent improvement, 
if followed by a period during which there is no large 


204 The Education of Behaviour 


influx of new ideas and no change in the constitution 
of the class. So far as I know, this is the only experi- 
ment which even touches on the matter. Much more 
work will evidently have to be done in this field if we 
are to obtain exact knowledge in regard to the con- 
ditions that affect the growth of ideas, and such know- 
ledge is clearly of the greatest importance to every one 
who wishes to influence the character of others. 


E. Problems Connected with Self-Government at 
School 


In conclusion we will consider the problems that 
arise out of the relation of an individual to those 
members of his group to whom he is not bound by 
ties of love or hate. For a full discussion of the 
subject in the light of our present knowledge of the 
psychology of the unconscious the reader is referred 
to Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the 
Ego (published by the International Psycho-analytical 
Press, 1921). Here we shall only use such parts of 
it as have direct bearing on our problems. 

A moment’s consideration will show that the various 
forms of government may be broadly divided into 
those which are autocratic or oligarchic and those which 
are self-governing. 

We will begin by considering groups which are 
not self-governing. 


The Training of Character 205 


At the bottom of these groups is an unorganised 
mob which is led by an individual whose position 
depends on the fact that he has the same dominant 
desires as the others and that he happens to be the 
strongest or the most courageous among them. The 
life of such a group depends on the individuality and 
success of its leader. It usually falls to pieces when 
he fails. The history of riots and rebellions gives 
plenty of instances of this. 

It is clear that the leader of such a group is its 
hero, and that each follower would therefore like to 
absorb his whole attention. Since this is manifestly 
impossible, they have to be satisfied with equal shares. 
But should he be foolish enough to favour one at the 
expense of the others, they will immediately turn upon 
him and hate him as intensely as they loved him 
previously. There is one other danger for a leader of 
this type : the very ease with which he obtains obedience 
may lead him to over-estimate his own powers and may 
thus bring ruin on them all. 

In the case of the rank and file undue suggestibility 
is the greatest danger, for it tempts the less suggestible 
to use the others for their own ends. It is always 
fatally easy to believe what one wants to believe; in 
fact, the only safeguard is definite information. Yet 
children leave the average school of to-day without 
even realising the need for such information. It is 


206 The Education of Behaviour 


not strange, then, that they are later at the mercy of 
any speaker or writer who happens to express views 
which fit in with their prejudices. And so long as 
there are sufficient persons who can be influenced in 
this way, the psychologist should not be surprised to 
find that there are also others who definitely make use 
of these feeble ones for their own ends. 

The groups we have considered so far depend for 
their existence on the leadership of a particular indi- 
vidual. In the next stage of development this personal 
element disappears and the position of leader itself 
carries with it a certain prestige which does not depend 
on the ability of the person who fills it. This is the 
ordinary form of autocratic government. We find it 
in the army and in the Roman Catholic Church as well 
as in many social organisations of the day. 

It is clear that membership is not entirely voluntary 
in such a group: we are born into a certain community 
and are sent to a certain school. At any moment the 
group is therefore likely to include many who have no 
particular admiration for its leader. But a community 
of this kind has been taught to respect a position at 
least as much as its occupant, and will therefore render 
him more or less willing obedience even if it does not 
stand in awe of him as an individual. 

Since this is the kind of government which we find 
in the majority of the schools of to-day, it is worth 


The Training of Character 207 


while to discuss its special difficulties a little further. 
In a typical school of this sort the teacher is the autocrat 
of the class. He-may delegate some of his powers to 
prefects or others, but they are then his lieutenants 
in the literal sense of the word, and he exacts obedience 
for them in virtue of their position. Of the pupils with 
whom he has to deal some will admire him, some will 
not; a few may actively dislike him. Those who are 
more or less indifferent to him will usually accept his 
leadership in virtue of his position and will give him 
little trouble, if he knows his business and is not too 
exacting in his demands. Those who like him will 
accept him as their hero, and will therefore give him 
problems similar to those of the hero-leader of the 
unorganised group (see p. 205). Finally, there are 
those who actively dislike him. Ideally these should be 
excluded from his class, for such an active dislike 
means that there is something within him which clashes 
with something within them, and complexes which 
obtrude themselves in this way are usually far too 
vigorous to be counteracted by mere acts of self-con- 
trol. The teacher can, of course, use his superior 
position to exact obedience from such pupils, but it 
will be quite impossible for him to get really good work 
out of them. They will dislike his lessons simply 
because he gives them and will therefore pay as little 
attention as they dare. 


208 The Education of Behaviour 


One other difficulty will be more easily seen in con- 
sidering the selection of the school team for the 
season, When such a team has been chosen there are 
always some who think they ought to have been in- 
cluded, and by the end of the season these have usually 
proved to themselves to their entire satisfaction that the 
team would really have done better if they had been 
selected. This is due to two causes: one is that our 
self-regard is always urging us to get for ourselves 
what we value, the other is that we quickly see the fail- 
ings of a rival when we can thereby please our love of 
self (cf. p. 78). For the same reasons the subordinate 
has a sharp eye for the mistakes of the superior whom 
he does not admire, and often does not realise how 
little his judgment is worth in such a case. One of the 
functions of education is certainly to reduce self- 
deception of this kind to a minimum. Probably the 
only way to achieve this is to give each youth practical 
experience in leadership and to discuss his difficulties 
with him when he finds that others now misjudge his 
efforts, just as he previously misjudged theirs. 

We turn next to the psychology of self-governing 
groups. In the fully developed group of this type each 
individual is what we may call “group conscious,” that 
is to say, he feels that the interests of his group are 
his interests, that he is a vital constituent of the whole 
and that he and his fellows will suffer if he does not 


The Training of Character 209 


do his duty by it. In such a group suggestion is kept 
within reasonable limits, for all members take part 
in discussions on equal terms and each has too much 
knowledge of the facts of the case to be carried away 
by a mere emotional appeal. Each is, of course, pre- 
judiced where his own interests are concerned, but his 
self-control and his power of looking ahead are such 
that he is loyal to the decision of the group even when 
the welfare of the whole demands a sacrifice of his own 
immediate interests. 

In larger groups some of the work has to be done 
by committees. If we are anxious to stimulate the 
“group consciousness” in our group, we should watch 
the constitution of these committees with some care. 
The selection of the same persons time after time may 
make for immediate efficiency but it will certainly 
cause loss of interest among those who are thereby 
reduced to the position of “rank and file,’ for our 
imagination and our power of looking ahead are both 
so limited that we soon neglect affairs in which we do 
not have to take an active part. Moreover, the average 
man much prefers to live in the present and to do as 
little hard thinking as possible, so that he is only too 
ready to accept the opinion of others where his own 
immediate interests are not concerned. There is there- 
fore a real danger that the government of the group 
will fall into the hands of a few, and that these will 


210 The Education of Behaviour 


sooner or later absorb all real power. Obviously the 
remedy is to make every member do his share of com- 
mittee work and to make the group responsible for the 
acts of its committees. 

When a group grows beyond a certain size, even this 
becomes impossible, and it is then usual to elect repre- 
sentatives who are given more or less of a free hand 
to look after the interests of their constituencies. In 
our present stage of development this makes it very 
difficult to maintain group-consciousness among those 
who have no opportunity of taking an active part in 
the management of affairs, for the average individual 
of to-day has neither the knowledge nor the foresight 
that would enable him to realise that the work of these 
representatives can affect his own personal welfare, 
when it is apparently not in the least connected with 
his own immediate needs. 

Those of us who believe in self-government should 
be anxious to develop the group-consciousness of our 
pupils, for all true self-government depends on it. To 
achieve this it is once again necessary to provide an 
environment in which its value can be realised by the 
pupil. 

The preceding discussion should, however, have 
made it clear that self-government is not suitable for 
young children. They have as yet neither the know- 
ledge nor the self-control to do more than play at 


The Training of Character 211 


managing their own affairs, and are therefore far 
happier under what has been termed a “benevolent 
autocracy.”’ On the other hand, they should, of course, 
be prepared for the next stage by having as much 
freedom as possible and by being held responsible for 
their own acts as soon as they are ready for it. There 
is some difference of opinion as to the age at which 
children are ripe for self-government, and an increasing 
number of schools are at present engaged in trying 
to solve this problem. To discuss their methods would 
take us too far afield, but the reader is advised to 
study the account given by Miss Alice Woods in 
Educational Experiments mm England, or that given by 
Dewey in Schools of To-morrow. 

One thing is certain whether self-government is 
begun at ten or at fourteen, each group must at first 
be so small that every member forms a vital part of it, 
and it must for a while be under the supervision of a 
teacher so that the children learn what group-govern- 
ment really means. The existence of rival groups is 
also helpful, for it gives a practical demonstration of 
the value of efficient group government (cf. Mc- 
Dougall, The Group Mind). (It would be easy to pro- 
vide this by letting the members of one class divide into 
two or more rival clubs of one kind or another.) As 
their experience increases, the children should first be 
made entirely responsible for the management of their 


212 The Education of Behaviour 


own groups and then be entrusted with the work of a 
group which is big enough to necessitate the formation 
of committees. In a self-governing school of any 
size part of the work will almost certainly have to be 
done by elected representatives. In the writer’s view 
this will, however, do little to develop the group-con- 
sciousness of the school as a whole unless the repre- 
sentatives are expected to keep their “constituencies” 
in close touch with what they are doing. 

Experience of this kind will stimulate the group- 
consciousness of the adolescent and will gradually make 
him more willing to subordinate his own interests to 
those of the community. On the other hand, it will not 
necessarily make him a good citizen. If that is our aim, 
we shall also have to give him enough knowledge to 
enable him to take an intelligent interest in local prob- 
lems, and enough general education to make it possible 
for him to acquire further information when he needs 
it. 

We have not yet discussed the position of the 
leader in a self-governing community, but a moment’s 
consideration will show that it is similar to that of the 
leader of other communities, The person who has been 
chosen as leader for a particular piece of work will still 
have admirers who accept his views too uncritically 
and detractors who find fault with all he does, and 
the person who has not been chosen for the post he 


The Training of Character 213 


wanted will still misjudge the acts of his rival unless he 
has learnt to withhold judgment in such a case. The 
only difference will be that there will be less tempta- 
tion to misuse power because the members of the group 
will be less easy to deceive. 


CHAPTER X 


WORK AND PLAY 


A. Work as an Activity which is Initiated by the Conscious- 
ness of the Self as a Lasting Entity, Play as an 
Activity which is the Direct Expression of the 
Desires of the Moment. 


B. The Activities of Children and Adolescents. 


(1) Activities of Children under Two and a Half Years 
of Age. 


(2) Activities of Children between Two and a Half and 
Seven or Eight Years of Age. 


(3) Activities of Children between Eight and Twelve 
Years of Age. 


(4) Activities of Adolescents after the Age of Twelve. 
C. The Educational Value of Play. 


D. Passive Play and its Reaction on Behaviour. 


A. The Meaning of Work and Play 


ANY one who tries to define the words “work” and 
“play” as used in ordinary conversation is faced with 
a difficult, if not an impossible task. We “play” 
hockey, but we “work” in the garden, though we may 
clearly enjoy the one as much as the other. It is 


sometimes said that in play alone we are absolutely free, 
214 


Work and Play 215 


but the member of a hockey team knows quite well 
that he cannot drop out of a game because he does not 
happen to be in the mood for it. Again, an occupation 
is said to be “play” if done purely for its own sake, 
“work” if done for some ulterior purpose, but this, 
too, is not always in accordance with the popular usage 
of these words; thus much of the work that the amateur 
puts into his garden is done for the pure joy of it; 
he tires himself out with digging because he enjoys the 
exercise or the smell and colour of the earth, not 
because he thinks it is good for his health, or because 
he cannot get any one to do it for him. 

Such vague use of terms is obviously impossible in 
a scientific discussion of various forms of activity. In 
psychology it is, therefore, usual to call an activity 
“play” if done purely for its own sake; “work” if done 
for some ulterior purpose. ‘Thus digging is play if 
done purely for the joy of digging, work if done in 
order to prepare the ground for flowers or vegetables. 
We may now go a step further and inquire why we 
should want to prepare the ground for flowers, even 
though we do not enjoy the physical exertion which 
the process entails. Clearly the answers of different 
individuals would vary greatly in scope and in char- 
acter. If we were to collect them all, we should, 
however, find that they have at least one thing in 
common; we do of our own accord what we do not 


216 The Education of Behaeianr 


enjoy because we think that we shall benefit by it in the 
end. What any particular individual considers a 
“benefit”? necessarily depends on his ideas of the needs 
of his “self.” He may be trying to satisfy some 
highly generalised ideal, or he may only be desirous 
of providing himself with concrete luxuries. The one 
essential is that he is able to look ahead to a slight 
extent, otherwise there is no reason why he should 
think of anything except his immediate needs. Hence 
the power to work depends on the power to realise that 
the self of to-morrow or next year is affected by the 
behaviour of the self of to-day. 

This knowledge is acquired gradually during child- 
hood and adolescence. The baby is at first only aware 
of the pleasure or unpleasure which accompanies his 
acts, he has as yet no consciousness of himself as a 
lasting entity. 

As his experience increases and as his mental powers 
develop, he learns that acts can have pleasant and un- 
pleasant effects some time after they have taken place. 
His mother may get angry about a broken window an 
hour or more after the stone went through it, she may 
even deprive him of jam at tea-time for some mis- 
demeanour of which he was guilty as long ago as that 
same morning. And the child who takes immediate 
reproof in good part will often resent one that is 
deferred, for a little child considers even an hour after 


Work and Play 217 


the event such a long time that it seems sheer spite on 
the part of the adult to refer to it again. However, 
bitter experience gradually teaches him that he has to 
reckon with the after-effects of his actions whether he 
will or not. As he learns this lesson, he becomes 
capable of true work, for his self-regard makes him 
formulate standards of attainment for himself, and 
these in turn make it possible for him to do the thing 
which is not particularly attractive at the moment for 
the sake of the pleasure which he will derive from it 
when it is done. 

To sum up: an activity is of the nature of work, 
if it 1s mitiated by the consciousness of the self as a 
lasting entity; 1t 1s of the nature of play if it is the 
direct expression of the desires of the moment when 
these are not controlled by any thought of the more 
permanent needs of the self. Clearly childhood is the 
time for true play, for it is only in childhood that 
we can satisfy each desire as it arises without thinking 
of the consequences. The adult usually finds it dif- 
ficult to forget himself to the same extent and he is 
therefore happier when he is engaged in an occupation 
which is in accordance with his more permanent idea 
of himself as well as with the sentiments or com- 
plexes which happen to be active at the moment. Thus 
I may be very fond of digging for its own sake, but 
the fact that my garden will benefit by the work I 


218 The Education of Behaviour 


am putting into it certainly adds to the pleasure which 
I derive from the occupation. 


B. The Actiwities of Childhood and Adolescents 


We might expect that the average person would 
prefer to keep his body at rest and his mind a blank 
after a heavy day’s work, but that does not seem to be 
the case. He may only be day-dreaming, if he is too 
tired to do anything else, but his mind is never entirely 
at rest so long as he retains consciousness. 

In order to see how this stream of activity varies 
with age and environment, and how pure play is gradu- 
ally displaced by a mixture of play and work, or, 
indeed, by work without any play, it will be necessary 
to study the occupations of children and adolescents in 
some detail, 

(1) Activities of Children under Two and a Half 
Years of Age.—In so far as a child’s activities are 
purely reflex, they are not purposeful, and therefore 
neither play nor work in the sense defined; but every 
baby soon discovers that certain acts are pleasurable, 
and as soon as this stage is reached he is able to form 
what we have called “primitive complexes” for these 
acts, and may therefore be said to be capable of play 
(see Chapter IV, p. 63). At first his own body natur- 
ally attracts much attention, but anything which comes 
within his range is rubbed, scratched or pulled about. 


Work and Play 219 


At eight or ten months he will be perfectly happy for 
hours enjoying the sounds he himself is able to make 
with his vocal organs. A little later he begins to enjoy 
running and climbing, building things so that they will 
stay, or throwing them down with a bang. Towards 
the end of this period we can sometimes observe slight 
attempts at “work”: thus a child will occasionally try 
to say a word rightly to win approval ; but such attempts 
are short-lived, for the child quickly loses patience and 
turns the attention of his would-be teacher to some- 
thing else. On the other hand, he may at times be 
observed to be repeating to himself over and over 
again some new word or phrase. This is, however, 
play, not work, for it is done purely for its own sake 
in response to One or more impulses. 

(2) Activities of Children between Ages of Two 
and a Half and Seven or E1ght.—During the next 
five or six years the co-ordination of the coarser 
muscles are being completed, with the result that the 
child obtains control over his immediate physical 
environment. Thanks to this, his experience increases 
rapidly, and he has soon enough ideas to enable him to 
try his hand at building something new of his own. 
On the other hand, he has still so little knowledge that 
he is not hampered by any distinction between the 
possible or the impossible, and so little power of reflec- 
tion that he often finds it difficult to distinguish be- 


220 The Education of Behaviour 


tween what he has experienced and what he had only 
imagined. Hence imaginative play develops rapidly 
during these years. Asa matter of fact, we can often 
observe the first signs of it at the age of two years 
and a half or three, but it does not become very marked 
till four or five, and usually reaches its maximum be- 
tween the ages of six and seven. 

If we examine the play of children between three 
and seven, we shall find that we can divide it roughly 
into unimaginative play and imaginative play, though 
the latter necessarily often involves the former. 

The unimaginative play is similar to that observed 
during the first period. The healthy child seems to 
enjoy movement for its own sake: he is talking, sing- 
ing, running most of the day, the one thing he finds 
irksome is to be quiet. At first he is still entirely 
destructive: he wants to pull things to pieces, to see 
what makes a noise, etc. But gradually other impulses 
come into play. He tries to make as well as to destroy; 
he collects things for the sheer joy of having them. 
Then, as his control over his muscles increases, he 
begins to prefer play which involves a certain amount. 
of skill. At about four years of age he wants to play 
with hoops and tops, to hammer nails into a board, 
and so forth; a little later he begins to enjoy skipping 
and dancing and is ready to be taught the use of 
ordinary tools. 


Work and Play 221 


For his imaginative play the child finds the necessary 
material in his environment. As was pointed out above, 
his gregariousness and his desire for knowledge make 
him notice what other people are doing, and his self- 
assertion makes him want to imitate all he admires. 
Thus he pretends to be his mother, his teacher, a sailor, 
a fairy, or anything else that strikes his fancy, and 
acts the part to the best of his ability. I once watched 
a child of about four playing at “engines.” He him- 
self was the engine, shunting, waiting for signals, etc., 
as he thought an engine would do. He began by 
instructing a child of about two and a half in the game. 
“This one,” he said, pointing to himself, “has got a 
fire right inside him, and you put the water in here” 
(pointing to his mouth). He soon grew absolutely 
absorbed in his play, and forgot all about the younger 
child, who was doing his utmost to imitate him, but 
evidently did not know what it was all about. A child 
of five has usually realised that an engine is not a 
living being; he prefers to be the engine-driver—with, 
say, a chair as his engine. But the difference between 
the four-year-old and the five-year-old is merely one of 
knowledge. Both are using their imagination to ex- 
press an interesting discovery in play. 

As the child develops, his play tends to become more 
imaginative and more ambitious. At the age of six 
and seven the intelligent child often plans elaborate 


222 The Education of Behaviour 


.games in which younger brothers and sisters, as well 
as tables, chairs, etc., all have a part. It is in prepara- 
tion for games of this kind that he probably gets his 
first ideas of work in the best sense of the word. He 
has done a little work for some years now, in the sense 
that he has done things he did not want to do in order 
to win approval or to escape punishment; but it is in 
play of this kind that he is for the first time making 
himself do something which is not particularly interest- 
ing for an end which he has himself conceived. Such 
exclamations as, “You might help!” show that he is not 
absorbed in the activity as such; if he were he would 
fiercely resent all help as interference. A little later his 
desire to make things may exact more work from him, 
for he tends to become more critical towards his own 
efforts as his knowledge increases. Then he begins to 
feel the need for instruction in the use of various tools. 
If he is taught properly he will enjoy the process, but 
even so, he is no longer playing as is the child of four 
who is hammering nails into a wall, for he has a 
purpose in view: he wants to learn how to use this tool, 
because he wants to make, say, a boat that sails prop- 
erly. His occupation is therefore technically a mixture 
of play and work—play because he enjoys it as such, 
work because it is not done entirely for its own sake. 
It may, however, become “pure play’ if he grows 
deeply absorbed in it and forgets all about his original 


Work and Play 223 


purpose : thus the child who is learning to read, usually 
passes through a stage when the reading of single 
words is so fascinating that he loses all interest in the 
story as such. 

(3) Activities of Children Between the Ages of 
Eight and Twelve.—After the age of eight there fol- 
lows a period of slow physical development during 
which the finer muscles are being co-ordinated; hence 
the child begins to be able to handle more delicate 
tools, such as needle and fret-saw and consequently 
becomes increasingly interested in the acquisition of 
skill. As soon as the technical difficulties of reading 
have been overcome, story-books tend to absorb part of 
his playtime and, with the increase of reasoning 
power, puzzles, riddles and games of skill begin to 
come to the fore. Meanwhile the average child goes 
through a stage of being extraordinarily matter-of- 
fact: he loses all pleasure in the invention of stories 
and games, and concentrates instead on the puzzles 
which his environment presents. The earnestness with 
which many a boy of eight or nine will listen to quite 
a technical explanation of the mechanism of engines 
shows how strong is his desire for information of this 
kind. It seems, in fact, as though a child of this age is 
at times so overwhelmed by the riddles of his little 
universe, that he has no energy left for anything else 
(cf. Impulse to Investigate, p. 46). 


224 The Education of Behaviour 


Another characteristic of this stage of development 
is the way in which the competitive spirit comes to the 
fore. Children of five and six do a thing because they 
enjoy it or because outside pressure is being put upon 
them. To urge them to do better than their neighbours 
is so much waste of energy, for they are still far too 
self-centred to be interested in the activity of others so 
long as it does not interfere with their own. By the 
age of eight, the child has, however, usually had 
occasion to learn that he is a member of a community, 
in which it is necessary for him to hold his own. Then 
he grows anxious to test his powers on every occasion: 
whether he is trying his physical powers, collecting 
stamps or playing a game of skill, at least half the 
pleasure he experiences lies for the time being in doing 
as well as this friend, or better than that other. At 
school, too, however attractive his lessons are made and 
however much competition is discouraged by those in 
authority, he will yet find means for comparing his 
progress with that of his fellows, for Nature’s call to 
him to find his place in the world is, as a rule, far too 
urgent to be resisted. As it happens, the desire to 
become a member of a gang is developing at about the 
same time(cf. gregariousness, p. 91), and can therefore 
be used at school to replace competition between indi- 
viduals by competition between groups. Such group 
work is a good preparation for the next stage. It has, 


Work and Play 225 


however, to be imposed from above, for it is not a 
normal form of competition for children under twelve. 

To sum up, we see that pure play is gradually taking 
a more subordinate place during this period of a child’s 
life. When he reads stories, listens to explanations of 
things that puzzle him, becomes a member of a gang, 
or satisfies his love of adventure actually or in imagina- 
tion, he is probably doing for the sake of doing, with 
no ulterior purpose in view. But many of his spare- 
time occupations, such as his competitive games or 
attempts to make things, involve a mixture of work 
and play, in that they are done partly for their own 
sake, partly for some ulterior purpose. We saw above 
that the child of six and seven was beginning to do a 
certain amount of work unmixed with play (in the 
sense defined). Between the ages of eight and twelve 
there is a rapid development of this power, for love of 
approval and interest in games or hobbies are now 
supplemented by a competitive spirit which is continu- 
ally urging the child to do things in which he takes 
little or no pleasure in order to hold his own with 
his fellows. Thus he begins to be able to do a fair 
amount of ‘pure work.” If he refuses to make the 
effort, it is either because his attempts meet with too 
little encouragement, or because the end in view is one 
which does not appeal to him. (It is, for instance, 
impossible for a child to be seriously interested in that 


226 The Education of Behaviour 


vague and far-off future when he will be “grown up.’’) 
The purpose must be one he can appreciate and his 
efforts must meet with a fair amount of success. If 
these two conditions are satisfied, the child of ten 
or eleven is capable of surprising amounts of “pure 
work,” } 

(4) Activities of Adolescents after the Age of 
Twelve—After the age of twelve interests develop 
rapidly, if the environment is at all favourable. At 
times they become all-absorbing, and “pure play” dis- 
appears almost entirely in favour of that mixture of 
play and work which is characteristic of competitive 
games, of hobbies, and of school-work, when it satis- 
fies some strong impulse, such as the impulse to investi- 
gate or the impulse to construct. At the same time, 
the capacity for “pure work” is increasing, for the 
youth is becoming able to look ahead, and hence willing 
to work for an end which will not be attained for some 
time. At the age of twelve a few weeks is probably 
his limit, but at fourteen or fifteen he should be able 
to make himself do six months, or even a year of 
systematic work for which he has no taste and from 


* Whether it is desirable that he should be encouraged to do 
such work is, of course, another matter, but one which does not . 
concern us here. It may, however, be noted in passing that we 
have to appeal largely to competition or love of approval if we 
want “pure work” at this stage, whereas we can use interest in 
the ulterior purpose, if we wait another two or three years. 


Work and Play 227 


which he will derive no concrete benefit before the end 
.of that time. 

Meanwhile, his desire to hold his own with his 
fellows is as strong as ever; self-assertion and pug- 
nacity are quickly aroused, and with boys especially, 
gymnastic feats, boxing and fencing, remain popular 
throughout adolescence. At the same time, the desire 
to be a member of a group has become too strong to be 
ignored. Hence each wants to play with his fellows 
and yet find an outlet for his self-assertion. The 


’ 


result is, of course, “quarrelsomeness,”’ and a general 
feeling that “the others’ are spoiling the game. It is 
at this stage of his development that the adolescent 
is ready to enjoy organised games, such as hockey or 
football, for these provide him with opportunities of 
testing his powers without bringing him into conflict 
with his group. Moreover, there are fixed rules as to 
what is and what is not allowed, and these have the 
authority of generations of players behind them. Their 
prestige is therefore so great that no adolescent would 
dream of questioning them, however irksome he may 
find them. Moreover, “passing the ball” begins to add 
to the zest of the game as the skill of the players in- 
creases, and cheating, or refusal to obey those in 
authority, is found to spoil sport instead of adding to 
it. Thus actual personal experience gradually teaches 
the players various lessons of the greatest social im- 


228 The Education of Behaviour 


portance, and experience is, as we know, the only really 
effective teacher of such lessons. 

Needless to say, these lessons cannot be learnt as 
readily as the rules of the game. Fair play, even if it 
is to the disadvantage of one’s own side, and obedience 
to leaders of one’s own choosing, even when their 
commands are unpalatable, are ideals which can only 
be established by degrees. Hence, an older umpire or 
coach, who teaches them as part of the game, is 
essential during the first few years. By the age of 
fifteen or sixteen the adolescent should, however, be 
able to manage his own game without help from his 
elders. 

As already stated, the power of doing a thing purely 
for its own sake, without thought of ulterior purpose, 
is, on the whole, on the decrease during early ado- 
lescence, but this should be only a phase in the develop- 
ment of the individual. 

Adolescence is the period during which esthetic 
perceptions develop: gradually beauty of form, colour 
and sound become enjoyable for their own sake and 
sunset and sea begin to have messages which are none 
the less real because they are too vague to be expressed 
in words. There results much day-dreaming, but also 
a desire for self-expression which will sooner or later 
find an outlet in some form of art or craft-work, if 
only the environment is favourable. Work of this kind 


Work and Play 229 


is true play in the sense defined. The worker is usually 
convinced that he has a good reason for engaging on 
any particular piece of work, but that does not prove 
much. Thanks to our traditions, it takes more inde- 
pendence of thought than is usual in adolescence to 
own, even to one’s self, that one is putting forth 
strenuous effort without at least the desire to produce 
something “useful” ; hence a purpose of some kind has 
its value in justifying one’s occupation to one’s self. 
We need, however, only watch the artist or craftsman 
at his work to see that the real attraction lies in the 
scope it gives for self-expression and that the ulterior 
purpose, so far from being primary, is continually in 
danger of being forgotten. 

Another form of true play which does not develop 
until adolescence is the pursuit of knowledge for its 
own sake. At the age of fifteen or sixteen young people 
often find this a fascinating form of activity, for it 
enables them to use their growing powers of abstraction 
and generalisation and satisfies impulses that are often 
in urgent need of activity, such as the impulse to 
investigate and the impulse to construct. As in the 
case of art work, the adolescent can usually give a 
reason for the task he has set himself, but where the 
task is of his own choosing, a little observation usually 
soon shows that it is really love of study which has 
made him attempt it. 


230 The Education of Behaviour 


C. The Educational Value of Play 


The reader who has followed this description of 
the activities of children and adolescents must have 
been struck with the educational value of play. At 
first the child lives entirely in the present, and life 
is therefore all play; yet he is learning all the time. 
In play he gains control over his muscles, in play he 
imitates the adults of his environment and adopts their 
customs and beliefs. Then, as he becomes conscious 
of himself as a lasting entity, he begins to enjoy play 
mixed with work, but it is only towards the end of 
childhood that he becomes able to do “pure work” to 
any large extent. In adolescence play has still the 
same functions to fulfil as in childhood, but there are 
now additional reasons why adequate provision should 
be made for it. Adolescence is the time when life 
seems full of perplexities, because irreconcilable senti- 
ments are continually being brought into conflict with 
each other: respect for tradition with love of know- 
ledge, desire for the safe life of the home with long- 
ing for independence and adventure. Unless the indi- 
vidual is handled wisely, the result is usually a state 
of nervous strain, which may show itself in various 
forms, such as violent emotional outbursts, morbid 
self-analysis, or that uncontrolled “giggling”? to which 
adolescent girls seem peculiarly liable. And it is just 


Work and Play 231 


at this stage that the mass of our young people begin 
to earn their living by work which, under modern con- 
ditions, is either quite uneducational, or, at best, so 
specialised that it only develops some small part of 
their inborn powers. 

Probably life can never run quite smoothly during 
adolescence, even under ideal conditions, for the youth 
has to organise his sentiments and to submit himself 
to a certain amount of specialisation, if he is to become 
fit for modern community life. Overstrain can, how- 
ever, be avoided by providing sufficient leisure and 
opportunity for hobbies and games. What will succeed 
in a particular case must, of course, depend on the 
taste and ability of the individual, but experience has 
shown that organised games and independent con- 
structive work (especially if of the nature of art work) 
usually meet the needs of the case by giving the youth 
that feeling of freedom and inner harmony which he 
often finds so hard to attain in his ordinary relations 
with other people. Besides this, he needs, among other 
things, gymnastics, swimming and dancing to develop 
his physical powers; camping or walking tours to 
satisfy his love of adventure; and last, but not least, 
time which he can call absolutely his own and of which 
he can therefore dispose as he likes. 

The spare-time occupations of the adolescent are 
thus of the greatest educational importance, their func- 


232 The Education of Behaviour 


tion being: (1) to aid the development of his latent 
powers; (2) to counteract the effects of unduly 
specialised or mechanical work; (3) to act as safety- 
valves for the emotional strain which is unavoidable 
at this stage; and (4) to teach him various social 
virtues through direct experience of their value. 


D. Passive Play 


The reader may have observed that nearly all the 
play activities we have discussed so far owe their attrac- 
tion to the fact that they give us opportunities for self- 
expression; we may be merely “letting off steam,” or 
we may be trying our powers in one way or another; 
but so long as we are playing, we must be conscious 
of free personal effort of some kind, otherwise we find 
our occupation dull, and turn our attention to some- 
thing else. There are, however, other forms of play 
in which the pleasure seems rather to lie in the oppor- 
tunity they provide for “self-forgetting”: thus an in- 
teresting novel or a good performance at a theatre may — 
become so absorbing that we find even such slight 
forms of self-expression as custom demands (e.g. 
clapping) a hindrance to our enjoyment. At such 
times the pleasure of the experience depends on the 
extent to which we can forget our individual needs 
and become part of the drama that is being presented 
to us, 


Work and Play 233 


Play of this kind is often called “passive play.” 
This is, however, hardly a true description of it, 
unless it is intended to emphasise the fact that it 
renders our self-assertiveness passive for the time 
being. As every one knows, we are active enough in 
other ways. At times we succeed in identifying our- 
selves with one or other of the actors, and thus ex- 
perience his joys and sorrows as though they were our 
own, and even if we cannot forget that we are only 
spectators, we must yet use a certain minimum of 
imagination if we are to enjoy the unravelling of the 
plot. As we concentrate on the drama, the mind 
becomes filled with it to the exclusion of all else, with 
the result that we experience an impulse to imitate the 
actors (cf. Imitation, footnote, p. 149). Imaginative 
children at times act on such an impulse, especially if 
they are watching a staged play and are not merely 
listening to a story. They gradually learn that it is a 
pity to do this, partly because public opinion is against 
it, but quite as much because any attempt to act on 
such percepts necessarily destroys the illusion and 
thereby puts an end to their enjoyment. | They then 
try to control the impulse, allowing themselves only 
incipient actions, such as the clenching of the fists and 
thus force the energy that is set free into the only 
path that is left for it, namely, that of emotional ex- 
pression. Passive play of the kind we have described 


234 - The Education of Behaviour 


seems therefore to stimulate both the imaginative and 
the emotional life of the individual, and to depend 
for its existence on his ability to merge his own per- 
sonality in that of others (cf. Psychological Sympathy, 
p. 152). 

Much the same seems to be true whatever form of 
passive play we examine: the spectator who is watching 
a hockey or football match will take little pleasure in 
what he is perceiving, if he cannot identify himself 
with one or other side and thus give scope to his power 
to reproduce in himself the impulses that actuate the 
players (e.g. the desire to fight) ; and the person who is 
enjoying beauty, whether in Nature or in art, probably 
depends on imagination and psychological sympathy 
in a similar manner, though his experience is often so 
vague or so complex that it is impossible to analyse 
it with any certainty. Finally, it should be noticed that 
true passive play is incompatible with criticism because 
the attitude of the critic is that of an outsider who is 
comparing his views or us interpretation with that of 
another, whereas passive play depends on our power to 
forget our own individuality and whatever else might 
spoil the illusion. As a matter of fact, our so-called 
passive play is in reality more often a mixture of the 
active and the passive, for we are only passive while we 
are absolutely carried away by what we are perceiving, 
and become active whenever the self wakes up suffi- 


Work and Play 235 


ciently to wonder whether this change of plan was wise, 
or that act true to life. 

To sum up, true passive play depends on the complete 
surrender of the self to the guidance of another and 
provides, in return, food for the imagination and for 
various emotions. All the same, it is not a sign of 
weakness of will to enjoy it; there are many persons 
who are by no means lacking in self-assertion and who 
yet find it a fascinating form of play. Nor is it 
sufficient to point out that we often resort to passive 
play when we are too much fatigued to enjoy anything 
that involves effort, since we certainly derive at least 
as much pleasure from it when we are feeling fresh 
and energetic. The attraction of passive play must 
therefore lie in the stimulus it gives to imagination 
and emotion. In the case of imagination, it is not 
surprising that activity is pleasurable, seeing that every 
imaginative act involves building up and is therefore 
a product of the constructive impulse which has, as 
we know, plenty of energy at its disposal.’ It is more 
difficult to account for the pleasure we take in living 
the emotional life of another, especially if that other 
is only a creature of the imagination, yet the pleasure 
is real enough, as we all know from personal experi- 
ence. Moreover, our enjoyment does not depend 


1It will be remembered that the activity of any impulse is 
pleasurable so long as it is not over-stimulated (see p. 141). 


236 The Education of Behaviour 


entirely on the quality of what we are perceiving. A 
really good book may fail to stir us if we are not in 
the mood for it, whereas quite a poor novel may hold 
us enthralled on a particular day because we happen to 
be attuned to it. Similarly we must be in the mood for 
watching a match, for perceiving the beauty of a 
thunderstorm, and indeed for any kind of play or work, 
in order to enjoy it to the utmost. 

As in the case of active play and work, to be “in 
the mood” for an occupation is equivalent to wanting 
to do it. If then we may look upon sentiments and 
complexes as “‘storage batteries’ for nervous energy 
in the way we suggested in an earlier chapter (see p. 
59), it follows that the nature of our mood depends 
on the distribution of our nervous energy at the mo- 
ment, for the centres which have most superfluous 
energy will also have the greatest need for an outlet. 
In active play and in work most of this energy is 
expended in action; in passive play this path is blocked 
and the energy has therefore to escape almost entirely 
as emotion. This suggests that passive play is of 
the nature of a safety-valve, of which the individual 
makes use when too tired for personal efforts or when 
he can find no other legitimate outlet for sentiments 
and complexes which are becoming overcharged with 
energy. 

As was pointed out in the chapter on Sentiments 


Work and Play 237 


and Complexes, the adolescent is particularly in need 
of a safety-valve of some kind, for he has so many 
contradictory impulses surging within him that he is 
likely to be faced with repression or rebellion as his 
only alternative if he is left to his own resources. We 
have also seen that organised games and art and craft- 
work are invaluable in this connection, but passive play 
is needed as well, for young people are at times assailed 
by longings—whether vague or definite—which they 
cannot satisfy in any other way. 

Passive play has, moreover, another effect on be- 
haviour which we have not yet considered. At the 
moment the onlooker merely absorbs what is given 
him, but this is by no means the end of the matter. 
The more the percept has appealed to him, that is to 
say, the greater the relief it has given to unsatisfied 
impulses, the more will the individual enjoy dwelling on 
it afterwards and the more anxious will he be to try 
to imitate his heroes (cf. Suggestion, p. 198), so that 
his passive play is likely to affect both his work and 
his active play in the long run. This tendency may 
clearly be for good or for evil; for good if the 
percepts suggest desirable outlets for what is sim- 
mering within him, for evil if they suggest either 
undesirable or wildly unlikely outlets. Thus a cine- 
matograph performance may stimulate a boy to join 
the scouts or to learn life-saving, but it may also sug- 


238 The Education of Behaviour 


gest to him that burglary or cheating would give him 
just those thrills for which he is longing. The little 
maid-of-all-work, who is on duty the greater part of 
the day, is driven to books to satisfy her longing for 
romance, but the penny novelettes to which she usually 
resorts can at best only make her feel that life is very 
unfair because the rich lover about whom she is always 
reading never seems to come her way. 

To sum up, passive play affects behaviour in two 
ways: on the one hand it provides temporary relief for 
internal pressure by enabling the individual to discharge 
superfluous energy as emotion, on the other it suggests 
possible activities for future occasions. These activities 
may, of course, be good, bad or indifferent, but it is 
the fault of the environment, rather than that of the 
adolescent if his pursuit of passive play has an undesir- 
able effect on his behaviour. It is sometimes held that 
this form of recreation is liable to encourage day- 
dreaming to a harmful extent. This may be true at 
times, but it is then usually the health of the youth or 
his environment which is to blame. It is rare for any 
one who is not lacking in vitality to prefer to let his 
energy evaporate in emotion, if he is given the oppor- 
tunity to express himself in action; but he may none 
the less be driven to adopt this course, if it is the only 
one which offers him the satisfaction which he desires. 


CHAPTER XI 
CONCLUSION! 


WE have defined education as the preparation for 
efficient citizenship, and we can now see more clearly 
how important is the part which the community must 
play in this process. It is true that the possibilities of 
each individual are limited by the strength or weakness 
of his inborn powers and tendencies; but character is 
the product of so many forces that it is safe to assert 
that every child of normal intelligence and stability has 
within him the material out of which a useful member 
of society could be fashioned in a suitable environment. 
It would be optimistic to imagine that many young 
people are to-day actually being given the opportunity 
of making the best of what is within them, Yet every 
failure means at least as much loss to the community 
as to the individual. 

If our efforts are to be attended by more success in 
the future, the general attitude towards problems of 
behaviour will have to become far more scientific than 


239 


240 The Education of Behaviour 


it is at present. Not only the specialist here and there, 
but every teacher and parent will have to realise that 
the actions of an individual are the outward expression 
of a highly complex system of forces, which must be 
understood, if it is to be handled wisely. 

Finally, it is perhaps worth while to remind 
the reader that the adult is himself at the mercy of 
his sentiments and complexes, and that he has no idea 
of the extent to which they govern him unless he has 
himself been through a course of psycho-analysis. 
He finds justifications for what he wants with- 
out realising that he is deceiving himself. He 
honestly believes that a certain attitude towards life is 
“finer” than another, when he really means that it is 
more in accordance with his own complexes. His 
“group-consciousness” is probably not as well de- 
veloped as it might be, and his self-regard will often 
lead him astray. If he is a keen teacher and a specialist 
he may, for instance, demand an unfair share of his 
pupils’ time and feel convinced that his teaching sub- 
ject is really more important or more difficult than 
those of his colleagues. It is unnecessary to labour the 
point. Whether his discipline be weak or strong, 
his general behaviour be social or anti-social, the cause 
is to be sought in his unconscious complexes. What- 
ever his tastes and his habits, they can be explained 
in terms of his centres of potential activity. And 


Conclusion 241 


whatever he is thinking or doing, it will seem quite 
reasonable to him at the time, though he may after- 
wards decide that he was not quite himself on a par- 
ticular occasion. Obviously the better he knows 
himself, the better will he be able to allow for his com- 
plexes and the more successful will he therefore be as 
an educator. 

For convenience of reference I shall here restate 
briefly the more important of the facts which have been 
established in the course of this book :— 

(1) In the last resort every form of activity can 
be traced back to self-preservation, to race preserva- 
tion, or to the combined effect of these two sources of 
energy. 

(2) In the higher animal the ends of self-preserva- 
tion and race preservation are attained by certain in- 
nate forms of activity which allow for varying degrees 
of adaptability. Of these the most primitive form is 
the pure reflex, which is an inborn tendency to react 
in one particular way to one particular stimulus or 
set of stimuli, Next come certain forms of behaviour 
which are partly under the control of the individual, 
and finally forms in which there is only an inborn tend- 
ency to attain a certain end, so that the stimuli which 
rouse it and the reactions through which it seeks to 
attain its end are acquired through experience. The 
student of human behaviour is in the main concerned 


242 The Education of Behaviour 


with the last of these—the “impulses,” as they have 
been called in this book. 

(3) Many of our impulses are connected innately 
with more or less complex systems of reflexes. Where 
such an organisation exists, part of the energy which 
is set free by the percept is drafted off automatically 
to the corresponding system of reflexes. This accounts 
for the bodily changes which accompany hunger, fear 
and anger and perhaps for the outward changes of 
expression which form part of every well-defined 
emotion. 

(4) When more energy is set free by a percept or 
idea than can be expended in attaining the end of the 
impulse that has been roused by it, the surplus energy 
tends to escape through the reflexes which belong to 
the system of that impulse, with the result that we 
experience what we call an emotion. Much of this 
energy can, however, be diverted to other forms of 
activity and the extent to which an individual can pre- 
vent an overflow, by diverting it in this way in times 
of stress, measures his control over his emotions, or 
his “self-control.” 

(5) Every check to the free flow of activity of 
any kind tends to stimulate the self-preservative im- 
pulses. The resulting action depends on the meaning 
which the obstacle has for the individual in question. 
If he regards it as dangerous, he becomes aware of 


Conclusion 243 


a desire to avoid it; if not, he is more likely to want 
to overcome it. 

(6) There is reason to believe that memory and 
imagination developed primarily in aid of self-preserva- 
tion and that every individual is endowed with a 
natural tendency to make use of his mental powers 
when he is faced with an obstacle which he wants to 
overcome, 

(7) The way in which an individual interprets any 
particular stimulus depends on his previous experience 
and on his mood at the moment. His mood probably 
depends on the distribution of his nervous energy at 
the time, and this in turn is influenced by his disposi- 
tion and his general attitude towards life. 

(8) In the course of the second year of his life 
a child usually becomes aware of himself as an indi- 
vidual with needs and rights of his own. At first his 
concept of his function in life is necessarily crude and 
limited, but it tends to change throughout the child- 
hood and adolescence and it remains liable to modifica- 
tion as long as the individual is able to learn from 
experience. In any particular case the final idea of 
the “‘self”’ is the combined product of the innate pos- 
sibilities of the individual and of the pressure which 
has been exerted by his environment. — 

(9g) In so far as a child is clearly aware of his own 
individuality, self-preservation makes him anxious to 


244 The Education of Behaviour 


adapt his behaviour to his idea of his “‘self,’’ with the 
result that this idea becomes a centre of increasingly 
great potential activity. 

(10) Every individual tends to form sentiments 
for the persons, objects and ideas which affect the 
well-being of the self, either directly or indirectly. 
These centres derive their energy more or less directly 
from the self-regarding sentiment, and their strength 
and permanence are consequently dependent on the ex- 
tent to which they fulfil some need of the self. 

(11) There is reason to believe that impulses can 
become surcharged with energy and that they then 
seek relief through any object, no matter how unprom- 
ising. Once this has occurred, the object in question 
has thereby become a centre of potential activity, the 
permanence of which depends on the extent to which 
it is able to satisfy the impulse which is in need of 
an outlet, and, in the case of self-conscious beings, 
on the attitude of the self towards the resulting act. 

(12) Gregariousness is in its simplest form the out- 
ward expression of fear of solitude. In human beings 
its manifestations are, however, usually complicated 
by the individual’s need for friendship. Both of these 
are centres of potential activity which develop during 
early childhood and affect behaviour throughout life 
in innumerable ways. Alone, or combined with other 
forces, they are responsible for the phenomena which 


Conclusion 245 


we have studied in connection with suggestion, imita- 
tion, love of approval, sympathy and pity. In partic- 
ular they account for many of the problems connected 
with class management and self-government. 

(13) When an object ceases to satisfy the needs of 
the self, the energy which was centred round it may 
be transferred to some other object, whether old or 
new. If this does not occur, the energy is reabsorbed 
by the self and usually finds an outlet in some form of 
day-dreaming, brooding or self-criticism. 

(14) A centre of potential activity is indestructible 
so long as it is the only one which can satisfy some 
need of the self or provide an outlet for an impulse 
which is liable to become surcharged with energy. If 
the conscious self disapproves of a sentiment, it may 
succeed in “forgetting” the same, but this merely 
drives the system below the surface of consciousness, 
where it continues to affect behaviour by such means 
as are at its disposal. An undesirable sentiment can be 
rendered harmless: (1) by diverting the energy from 
it to some other object which satisfies the same need 
of the self, or (2) by modifying the idea of the self 
in such a way that that need ceases to exist. 

(15) Sentiments and complexes tend to form in 
their service such new centres of potential activity and 
such habits as are likely to help them to attain their 
ends. 


246 The Education of Behaviour 


(16) In so far as different percepts rouse the same 
centre of potential activity, they tend to produce similar 
habits, if they recur with sufficient frequency. The 
reaction to any particular percept can, however, only 
become automatic for that percept. 

(17) Ideas which occur together or in close sequence 
tend to become associated together in such a way 
that any one of them is thereafter liable to recall one 
or more of the others. 

(18) “The laws of association tend to disorganise 
all systems of character in so far as they introduce 
into them constituents which are useless or harmful, 
and lead to the formation of bad habits; but they also 
subserve them by strengthening serviceable connections 
which lead to the formation of good habits. The law 
of organisation, on its side, tends to exclude from 
those systems all constituents that owe their presence 
there to the action of association alone’ (Shand, 
Foundations of Character, p. 70). 

(19) Will-power is the power to strengthen a motive 
by energy derived from the self-regarding sentiment. 
It is therefore the name given to the impulse to fight 
when that impulse is roused in support of a sentiment 
or habit. 

(20) The strength of a person’s character is shown 
by the extent to which he is consistent in his be- 
haviour, , 


Conclusion 247 


In order to attain a really strong character, the in- 
dividual must: (1) choose a master-aim which has a 
sufficient element of permanence to outlast the ordin- 
ary accidents of life; (2) organise all his other senti- 
ments in relation to this aim; (3) form suitable habits 
of choice; and (4) check the growth of habits and 
sentiments which are likely to hinder him in his purpose. 

The extent to which an individual succeeds in de- 
veloping a strong character depends: (1) on his will- 
power; (2) on his disposition or general attitude to- 
wards life; (3) on the strength of the sentiment which 
he is able to form round his master-aim; (4) on the 
strength of rival sentiments and (5) on the extent 

to which his environment proves a help or a hindrance. 
) (21) A strong character is not necessarily a fine 
character. We judge the quality of an individual’s 
character at least as much by the quality of his master- 
sentiment as by the extent to which he is consistent 
in his actions. 

(22) Work may be defined as an activity which 
is initiated by the consciousness of the self as a lasting 
entity, play as an activity which is the direct expression 
of the desires of the moment. 

Childhood is the time for pure play, because the 
young child lives entirely in the present. As he grows 
older he becomes capable of work, because experience 
gradually teaches him that actions are liable to produce 


248 The Education of Behaviour 


pleasant or unpleasant results long after they have 
taken place. 

(23) It is almost impossible to exaggerate the 
educational value of “pure play” and of those mixtures 
of work and play in which the play element is pre- 
dominant. Occupations of this nature develop the 
latent powers of the individual, act as safety-valves in 
times of emotional strain, teaches various social vir- 
tues through direct experience of their value, and, in 
the case of adolescents, counteract the effects of the 
unduly specialised or mechanical work which is often 
unavoidable at this age. 

(24) “Passive play’ depends on the complete sur- 
render of the self to the guidance of another, and 
provides in return food for impulses and centres of 
potential activity which cannot find sufficient outlet 
in actual life. A case in point is the constructive 
impulse, which readily becomes overcharged with 
energy and which finds an easy outlet in the activities 
of the imagination. 

(25) Passive play often lays the foundation for 
future play and work by suggesting new forms of 
activity to the individual. It is not likely to lead to 
undue day-dreaming in any person who is in normal 
health and who is given suitable opportunities of ex- 
pressing himself in action. 

(26) The psychology of behaviour teaches us that 


Conclusion 249 


a community has only itself to blame for the vast ma- 
jority of its failures and semi-failures, but that this 
wastage is likely to continue until there is a far more 
widespread appreciation of the importance of study- 
- ing the forces which govern behaviour. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Boyp Barrett, Motive Force and Motivation Tracks. 
(Longmans. ) 
Bruce, Handicaps of Childhood. (Kegan Paul.) 
Freup, Psycho-Pathology of Everyday Life. (T. Fisher 
Unwin.) 
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. 
(International Psycho-Analytical Press.) 
GaLton, Enquiry into the Human Faculty. (Dent.) 
HEAty, Mental Conflicts and Misconduct. (Kegan Paul.) 
Hort, The Freudian Wish. (T. Fisher Unwin.) 
W. James, Textbook of Psychology. (Macmillan.) 
Principles of Psychology. (Macmillan.) 
June, Analytical Psychology. (Bailliére.) 


Lay, The Child’s Unconscious Mind. (Kegan Paul.) 
LovEDAY AND GREEN, Introduction to Psychology. (Ox- 
ford University Press.) 


McDoucatu, Introduction to Socsal Psychology. 
(Methuen. ) 
The Group Mind. (Cambridge Press.) 
Nunn, Education: Its Data and First Principles. 
(Edward Arnold.) 
251 


252 Bibliography 


HERBERT SPENCER, Education: Intellect, Moral and 
Physical. (Williams and Norgate.) 

SHAND, Foundatsons of Character. (Macmillan.) 

Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. (T. 
Fisher Unwin.) 

F. Watts, Educatson for Self-Realisation and Social 
Service. (University of London Press.) 


CanNOoN, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and 
Rage. (Appleton.) / 
Licx.tey, The Nervous System. (Longmans.) 


CALDWELL Cook, The Play Way. (Heinemann.) 
Dewey, Schools of To-morrow. (Dent.) 


Groos, The Play of Animals. (Appleton.) 
The Play of Man. (Heinemann.) 


Woops, Advance in Coeducatson. (Sidgwick and Jack- 
son. ) 

Educational Experiments in England. (Meth- 
uen. ) 


INDEX 


Ability, effect on impulse to 
construct, 53 
Ach, 170, 171, 194, 196 
Activity, impulsive, 61, I10 
in connection with re- 
flexes, III, 112 
potential, 59, 61, 244, 248 
reflex, 107 
Acts, purposeless, explained, 82 
Adolescence, 72° 
zsthetic development during, 
229 
impulse to collect during, 50 
impulse to investigate during, 


49 
problems of, Chap. XI 
self-assertion during, 36 
time of active choice, 7 
unsuitable work during, 231 
work and play during, 227 
Adolescent, 6-7, 89, 147, 230 
activities of, 226 
friendships of, 39 
self-absorption of, 158 seq. 
sex instruction of, 42 
shyness of, 163 
spare-time of, 231 
sympathy of, 157, 158 
Adrenal glands, 168 
Adrenaline, 111 
Anna, 84 i 
Approval, 183 
a “‘lawful’’ obstacle, 188 
love of, 184, 198 
causes summarised, 94 
in training of character, 190 
various causes of, 92 
Association areas, 108 
Associations, by contiguity, 79, 
80, 246 


253 


Associations, method of free, 79, 
81, 85, 88, 121 
Attainments, dependent on en- 
vironment, 5 
Awareness, loss of, 116 
Axon, 102 


Bagley, 134 
Bain, 79 
Behaviour, 78-80 
consistency in, 174 
effect on repressed complexes, 
83 
factors deciding, 7 
importance of desire in, 13 
impulsive, 184 
influenced by sentiments and 
complexes, 86 
problems of, 86 
Blame, grading of, 189 
in training of character, 189 
Boyd Barrett, 174 
experiment of, 126 


Table I, 128 
Table II, 130 
Bruce, 163 


Cerebellum, its function, 106 
Cerebrum, distribution of nerve- 
centres in, 107 
its function, 106, 109 
Chance, defined, 123 
Character, a ‘‘fine,’’ 179 
based on sentiments, 174 
defined, 165 
psychology of, Chap. VIIT 
strength of, 174, 197, 246 
training of, 180 
Child, development of, 86 


254 


Choice, automatic, 129 
difficulties in, 178 
exhibits character, 165 
forces determining, 165 
inconsistency of, 129 
Michotte and Prum’s experi- 
ment in, 173, 174 
Citizen, 12 
characteristics of an efficient, 4 
Coeducation, its value, 40 
Collateral, 102 
Committees, 209 
Competition, between children, 
224 
between groups, 225 
Complexes, Chap. IV, 118, 166, 
236, 240, 245 
primitive, 63, 218 
Complexes repressed, 83, 86, 119 
outlets in disguised form, 83 
habits originating from, 87, 
121 
unconscious, 88 
Conduct, influence of environ- 
ment, 5-7 
stages of, 184 
Conflict, in desire for friendship, 


gI 
Copying, its function, 66 
Crowd, 90, 150 

its effect on impulse and emo- 

tion, I51 

psychology of, 204 
Cruelty, a form of revenge, 154 
Curiosity, 17, 47, 48 


Day-dreaming, 218, 228, 248 
Dendron, 102 
Desire, conflict of, 73, 74 
for right action, 7 
in growth of habits, 135 
to help, 153 
to win approval, 8, 10 
Dewey, 211 
Disapproval, 183 
a “‘lawful’’ obstacle, 187 
Disobedience, apparent, 8-10 
real, 8-10 
Displeasure, 193 
Disposition, 166, 247 
physiological basis, 167 


Index 


Economic conditions, effect of, 


49 
Education, as preparation for 
citizenship, 3 
of impulse to avoid danger, 32 
of mating impulse, 38, 41 
Egotism of young child, 34 
Emotion, connection with im- 
pulse, 19 
control of, 143 
defined, 19 
expression in, 152, 242 
its dangers, 152 
James-Lange theory of, 138, 
140, I4I 
physiological changes in, 139 
pleasure-toned, I41, 142 
preferred to action, 238 
uncontrolled, 142 
Endocrine glands, 168 
Environment, 38, 86, 99, I19, 
137, 143, 154, 158, 189, 
202, 223, 238 
artificial, 183 
defined, 11 
effect on impulses, 31, 35, 47, 
2 


effect on sentiments, 60, 64, 
68, 69, 76 
limitations of, I1 
scope of, 4 
source of foolhardiness, 33 
Experience, lessons from direct, 
182 
personal, 156, 227 
previous, 243 
repressed in little children, 83 
Expression, emotional, 233, 242, 
facial, 141, 149 


Failures fault of community, 249 
Fatigue, 235 
Fear, 30, 31, 32, 46, 47, 242 
changed to self-assertion, 63 
as complex or sentiment, 90, 
I 
in adults, 91 
in child, 90 
of being alone, 99 
of Life, repressed, 161 
Feeling tone, 20, 138 


al diate nile nine 


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Index 


Foolhardiness, 32 
Freedom of individual, 196 
Freud, 72, 73, 204 
Friendship, 40, 70, 91, 94 


Games, during adolescence, 231 
organised, 227 
social importance of, 227 
Gangs, 68, 224 
unstable in young children, 91 
Geography, abnormal interest 
in, 84 
Government, forms of, 204 
school, 206 
Gregariousness, 188, 221, 244 
as fear of being alone, ‘90 
in relation to love of approval, 


93 
interaction with self-assertion, 


95 
its effects on behaviour, 90 
its effect on sympathy, 148, 
153, 154 
psychology of, 90 
Group, 188 
consciousness, 208 
leader, 205, 212 
psychology, 204 
Groups not self-governing, 204 
self-governing, 208 


Habit, Chap. VI, 80, 109 
consciously acquired, 118, 119 
effect of chance, 123 
law of, III 
unconsciously acquired, 118, 

119, 120 

Habit of choice, 147, 193 
experiments on, 133 
hindrance in development of, 

122 
in development of self-control, 


147 

in formation of character, 175 

origin of, 117 

so-called transference of, 133 

theoretically considered, 133 
Habits, rules for acquiring, 124 

specialised, 189 

their formation, 123 


255 


Habits, treatment of wundesir- 
able, 125, 185 
Habitual response, automatic, 
114 
resisted, 114 
value of, 115 
Head, 168 
Help harmful, 155 
Heredity, scope of, 4 
Hero worship, 70, 80, 205, 207 
in development of individual, 
72 
sham and genuine, 71 
Hesitation, 129. See also Inde- 
cision 
Hobbies, 56, 226, 231 
satisfy impulse to construct, 


54 
Human being, impulse in, 23 
reflex in, 23 
Hunger, 242 


Ideals, 200 
growth of, 197, 204 
in regulation of conduct, 184 
origin of, 197 

Ideas, early association of, 66, 67 
in relation to impulses, 14 

Imagination, 109, 156, 243, 248 
in passive play, 233 
its origin, 235 

Imitate, to, 68 

Imitation, 96, 148, 234. Seealso 

Copying 

conscious, 97, 98 
unconscious, 98, 9 

Impulse, Chaps. a a SEDGE, 

73, 141, 143, 229, 244 

adaptability, 23 
always momentary, 55 
cannot be killed, 33 
contrasted with sentiment, 57, 


60 
defined, 16, 242 
development of, 220 
educable, 24 
effect of blocking, 16, 18 
in race and self-preservation, 
27 
specific reactions to, 24, 25 
survival value, 28 


256 


Impulse—Continued 
term preferred to instinct, 26 
varying strength of, 10 
to assert oneself, 33, 41 
to avoid danger, 15, 29, III, 
139 
to collect, 21, 51 
to construct, 19, 51-53, 62, 
235 
to fight, 36, III 
to investigate, 29, 41, 46, 49, 


50 
to protect the weak, 43, 152, 
156 
to seek a mate, 37 
Impulses, individual differences 
in, 167 
Impulsive, defined, 61 note 
Indecision, 126. See also Hesita- 
tion 
Indifference, apparent, 58 
Inferiority, feeling of, 199 
Innate differences, their effect on 
sentiments, 60 
Instinct, 90, 91 
difficulties in definition of, 26 
note 
Interest, instability of, 62 
place in development of in- 
dividual, 57 
Interests, as sentiments, 56 
depending on intercourse with 
others, 91 
in relation to impulse to col- 
lect, 51 
in relation to impulse to in- 
vestigate, 46 
Introspection, 65, 129 
Inventor, his importance to 


group, 49 


James, 139, 170 

Judgment, difficulties in forma- 
tion of, 77 

Jung, 72, 73, 84, 85 


Kindergarten, 44 
Knowledge, acquisition of, 10 
its dependence on environ- 
ment, 47 


Index 


Lange, 139 

Love, egotistic, 67, 68, 208 
for friends, 39 
for parent, 93 


McDougall, 90, 95 note, 174, 211 
quoted, 184 
Master, as hero, 75, 207 
Medulla oblongata, its func- 
tion, 106 
Memory, 109, 243 
Michotte, 170 
experiment of, 172 
Midbrain, its function, 106 
Mind tunnelling, 79, 88 
Mood, 236, 243 
its origin, 236 
Motivation, 126 
Motive, 137 
Muscles, co-ordination of coarser, 
219 
co-ordination of finer, 223 
Myers, 168 


Nail-biting, 120 
Neatness, 134 
as an ideal, 135 
Nervous system, autonomic, 105 
central, 105 
interdependence of physio- 
logical and _ psychological 
changes, 109 
its functions summarised, 112 
physiology of, Chap. V 
structure of, 105, 106 
Neurone, 101 
continuity of function, 102 
response to stimuli, 103 


Obstacles, ‘‘lawful,”’ 180 
defined, 181 
“‘lawless,’’ 180 
defined, 181 
Origin, the, of children, 85, 86 


Pain, avoidable, 29, 30 

Patronage, 153 

Percept, 59 
effect on 


distribution of 
energy, 16 


Index 


Percept—Continued 
in relation to impulse, 14, 15 
Perception, 109 
Percepts, 43 
arousing fear, 30 
Perseveration, defined, 167 
effect on behaviour, 167 
Pets in kindergarten, 44 
Play, Chap. X 
as means of self-expression, 
232 
defined, 217, 247 
differentiated, 215 
during infancy, 219 
imaginative, 220, 221 
in adult, 217, 218 
in child, 217 
in pursuit of knowledge, 229 
involving skill, 220 
its educational value, 230 
pure, subordinated, 224 
unimaginative, 220 
passive, 233, 248 
criticism in, 234 
imitation in, 237 
summarised, 238 
Pleasure, 171, 193, 196 
its physiological effect, 192 
Pons, its function, 106 
Pot-hooks, 98 
Praise, grading of, 189 
in training of character, 189 
Preservative tendency, 167 
Pride, 17 
Prum, 170 
experiment of, 172 
Psycho-analysis, 119 
Psychology, modern analytic, 
73, 79, 80 
Public opinion, 70, 77, 90 
influence of, 68 
strength of, 94 
Punishments, 185 
arbitrary, 186 
natural, 191 
their danger, 184 


Race preservation, 241 
as source of impulses, 27 
at expense of self-preserva- 
tion, 28 


257 


Reaction, development of, 25 
primary form checked, 19 
types of, 25 

Reasoning, 109 

Recognition, 109 

Recreation through emotion, 


152 
Reflex, Chap. IT, 24, 27-29 
defined, 22, 241 
differentiated from impulse, 
20, 21 
in race-preservation, 28 
in self-preservation, 28 
its primitve nature, 22 
physiology of, 103 
uneducable, 24 
Religious exercises, 160 
Repetition, in formation of 
habits, 113 
physiological and psychologi- 
cal, aspects of, 109 
Repression, resistance in recall, 


89 
Reproof deferred, 216 
Resistance, its effect on habits, 
124, 125 
Responsibility, of child, 4 
of educator, 4 
Rewards, 185 
natural, 191 
their danger, 184 
Ruediger, 135 


School, giving help in, 45 
government in, 206 
sex instruction in, 41 
Self, and non-self, 34 
in acts of will, 170, 173 
social ideal of, 76 
the, 75, 216, 243, 247 
Self-absorption, cause, 164 
Self-assertion, 58, 93, 95, 97, 155; 
200, 221 
as immediate cause of pug- 
nacity, 36 
in relation to protective im- 
pulse, 43 
in sympathy, 153 
Self-assertiveness, 233. See also 
Self-assertion 


258 


Self-consciousness, characteris- 
tic of sentiment, 63 
Self-control, 92, 143, 147, 242 
its development, 145 
Self-deception, 208 
Self-forgetting, 232 
Self-government, 210 
Self-preservation, 32, 33, 159, 
241 
as source of impulses, 27, 
Self-regard, 85, 99, 150, 177, 188, 
195, 197, 198, 202, 208, 246 
as source of volition, 174 
its development, 76 
its effect on choice, 173 
Self-respect, 190. See also Self- 
regard 
Self-subjection, 95 note 
Sentiment, Chap. IV 
as cause of fixed likes and dis- 
likes, 56 
as centre of potential activity, 


ae 
defined, 59 
development of, 64 
during adolescence, 70 
effect on habits and judgment, 


77 
summarised, 78 
master, 176, 247 
self-regarding. 
regard. 
sources analysed, 63, 65, 75 
varying in permanence, 62 
Sentiments, 65, 74, 118, 122, 166, 
236, 240, 244 
Sex instruction, duty of parent, 


See Self- 


42, 86 
duty of school, 42 
Shand, 59 note, 78 
quoted, 175, 246 
Shyness, cause and cure, 164 
Skill, children’s games of, 223 
Social intercourse, 161 
Spencer, Herbert, 3 
Spinal cord, 105 
Squ‘re, 134, 136 
Standards of behaviour, as senti- 
ments, 56 
Standards of conduct, 69 
graded, 196 


Tider 


Strain, emotional, 160, 230 
Study, love of, 160 
Sublimation, 85, 120 
Suggestibility, 197, 205 
Suggestible defined, 95 
Suggestion defined, 95 
direct, 197, 199 
experiment in, 200 
indirect, 198 
mass, 197 
defined, 97 
prestige, 97, 197 
defined, 97 
Suggestions, from superiors, 
equals and inferiors, 95, 96, 97 
Suprarenal glands, 168 
Sympathy, Chap. VILB 
checked by shyness, 163 
in adolescence, 157 
in desire to help, 152 
its growth in childhood, 157 
its psychology, 148 
pure, defined, 156 
true, 153 


Temperament, 166 
physiology of, 168 

Thalamus, 110 

Thumb- sucking, 120, 194 

Thyroid gland, 168 

Tools, delicate, 223 
purposefully used, 221 

Trotter, 90 


Unconscious, the, 72, 73 
Unpleasure, 171, 178 
its physiological effect, 191 


Vernier Chronoscope, 127 


Weapons used to overcome 
obstacles, 17, 18 

Will-power, 166, 234, 247 
Ach’s experiment on, 170 
defined, 170 
essential to strength of char- 

acter, 175 

origin, 174 
limitations illustrated, 177 


Index 259 


Williams, quoted, 169 Work, defined, 217, 247 

Woods, Miss Alice, 211 differentiated, 215 

Work, Chap. X during adolescence, 226 
art and craft, as play, 228 during infancy, 219 


as emotional relief, 160 
beginning of, 221, 225 Yule, 123 


The Mind in Action 


A Study of Human Interests 


By 


George H. Green 


Author of “ Psychanalysis in the Class Room,” etc. 


Since the advent of scientific method into 
the mental philosophies, the field of psycho- 
logy has been enlarged, defined, and redivided. 
With the completion of the cycle, laymen as 
well as scholars have sensed a certain futility 
in the process, which seems to typify the 
eternal recurrence of things. And along with 
all definite, positive progress in the field 
have appeared schisms; ‘‘ behaviorism,”’ 
mystical dualism, confusion, complications, 
‘* complexes.” 

In this book Dr. Green proceeds from a 
background of fundamentals and with an 
intimate knowledge of the contemporary psy- 
chological milieu, into a close and consistent 
exposition of ‘‘ the mind in action.” 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 
New York London 


Ethics and Some 
Modern World Problems 


By 
William McDougall 


Professor of Psychology in Harvard University 
Author of ‘‘ The Group Mind’”’ 


From the very first, ethics has at- 
tempted both to give a causal explanation 
of moral phenomena, and to propound a 
theory of what things are good and what 
acts are right. In this book, as in his 
earlier works, William McDougall avoids 
such a dangerous dualism. The inter- 
pretations, analyses, suggestions embodied 
in Ethics and Some Modern World Problems, 
follow consistently from the widely read 
The Group Mind. Professor McDougall 
handles old problems with a method, 
distinctive, new, and single-minded. 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 
New York London 


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